Clinton Lie Kills Her Credibility on Trade Policy

What is the proper word for the claim by Hillary Clinton and the more factually disinclined supporters of her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination -- made in speeches, briefings and interviews (including one by this reporter with the candidate) -- that she has always been a critic of the North American Free Trade Agreement?

Now that we know from the 11,000 pages of Clinton White House documents released this week that former First Lady was an ardent advocate for NAFTA; now that we know she held at least five meetings to strategize about how to win congressional approval of the deal; now that we know she was in the thick of the manuevering to block the efforts of labor, farm, environmental and human rights groups to get a better agreement. Now that we know all of this, how should we assess the claim that Hillary's heart has always beaten to a fair-trade rhythm?

Now that we know from official records of her time as First Lady that Clinton was the featured speaker at a closed-door session where 120 women opinion leaders were hectored to pressure their congressional representatives to approve NAFTA; now that we know from ABC News reporting on the session that "her remarks were totally pro-NAFTA" and that "there was no equivocation for her support for NAFTA at the time;" now that we have these details confirmed, what should we make of Clinton's campaign claim that she was never comfortable with the militant free-trade agenda that has cost the United States hundreds of thousands of union jobs, that has idled entire industries, that has saddled this country with record trade deficits, undermined the security of working families in the US and abroad, and has forced Mexican farmers off their land into an economic refugee status that ultimately forces them to cross the Rio Grande River in search of work?

As she campaigns now, Clinton says, "I have been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning."

But the White House records confirm that this is not true.

Her statement is, to be precise, a lie.

When it comes to the essential test of the trade debate, Clinton has been identified as a liar -- a put-in-boldface-type "L-I-A-R" liar.

Those of us who covered the 1993 NAFTA debate have frequently expressed doubts about the former First Lady's recent statements. We never heard anything at the time about her dissenting from the Clinton Administration line on trade policy. And we knew that she had defended NAFTA in the years following its enactment. But fairness required that we at least entertain that notion--promoted by the lamentable David Gergen, himself a champion of free-trade policies while working in the Clinton White House--that Hillary Clinton had been a behind-the-scenes critic. We had to at least consider the possibility that, at the very least, Clinton had been worried that advancing NAFTA would trip up her advocacy for health care reform, that she had made her concerns known and that she had absented herself from pro-NAFTA lobbying.

This was certainly the impression that Clinton and her supporters sought to create as she campaigned in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana--states where worried workers want to know exactly where the candidates have stood and currently stand with regard to trade issues.

But that impression was a deliberate deception.

And we must all now recognize that when Hillary Clinton speaks about trade policy, she begins with a lie so blatant--that she's been "a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning"--that everything else she says must be viewed as suspect.

Comments (148)

1. Barack "Not that Hussein" Osama is toast and will not even win primary.

   Enter stage left:

   Hillary Rotten Clinton aka her thighness

   B.J is roaming backstage chasing interns

   Yes you LIBZ are very impressive on how you run your primaries.....

   NOT

   Posted by libzsuk at 03/20/2008 @ 2:02pm

2. Now that we know from the 11,000 pages of Clinton White House documents released this week that former First Lady was an ardent advocate for NAFTA, now that we know she held at least five meetings to strategize about how to win congressional approval of the deal, now that we know she was in the thick of the manuevering to block the efforts of labor, farm, environmental and human rights groups to get a better agreement, now that we know all of this, how should we assess the claim that Hillary's heart has always beaten to a fair-trade rhythm?

   Hillary Clinton is indeed a LIAR, and she should give back most of her delegates she won in Ohio for telling that lie to the voters there on NAFTA!

   If Hillary had told the truth on NAFTA BEFORE the Ohio primary, she would have lost Ohio!

   Posted by Metteyya at 03/20/2008 @ 2:09pm

3. Liberals don't have primaries.Someone needs to get back into high school instead of playing on here.

   Posted by i'm nobody at 03/20/2008 @ 2:10pm

4. To quote our esteemed veep: "So?"

   Her supporters in PA -- the only primary left that really matters to Billary -- won't know or won't care because they are too fueled on race by the Billary campaign. And that's it, folks, ain't no more. Either Billary win HUGE enough in PA to eliminate Obama's popular lead or they fold. A mighty challenge indeed. For without a popular total lead, Billary have lost credible arguments with the Super Ds. And the Super Ds already know where HRC stood on NAFTA.

   Posted by sloper at 03/20/2008 @ 2:24pm

5. I would be shocked if this gets any play in mainstream media. Some documents from old files dont have nearly the shock that would make this newsworthy. Nothing like a passionate speach by Baracks pastor on Americas foreign policy crimes

   Posted by Extraneous at 03/20/2008 @ 2:40pm

6. She would have been better off if she had come out and said, "NAFTA looked great on paper and appeared to have awesome potential. However, once implemented, it became a beast and it needs to be overhauled. Just as I was instrumental in garnering support for NAFTA, I can be instrumental in revising the act. That's part of the experience I bring to the table: learning from mistakes."

   Would have been honest and concise. Unfortunately, that's not the style of today's politics (if it ever was).

   Posted by FritztheCat at 03/20/2008 @ 2:45pm

7. Fritz is right, particularly when so many of our compatriots actually favor lower tariffs and more trade with democracies like Mexico. We should pick our battles; instead of giving the Party of Multinational Corporations an opportunity to deride us as 'protectionist', we should denounce them for selling out democracy, and workers in democracies, to sweatshop dictatorships like China.

   Posted by samcrossett at 03/20/2008 @ 2:53pm

8. SLOPER - in that Cheney softball interview, they used public "opinion" and "polls" not the word "Will of the People"

   Posted by winyahn at 03/20/2008 @ 3:10pm

9. Are we supposed to be surprised that Hillary Clinton lied? From the first day she announced she was running for president she has lied about her thirty five years of service, which is not only a bald faced lie, but totally laughable as well. She lied about Nafta and lies about many, many other things. Her campaign has tried discrediting Obama with Jewish voters implying that he was a Moslem and anti-Israel, and has done whatever they could to bring the ugliest parts of racism to the voters in an attempt to scare them away from voting for Obama. The Clinton's have run a win-at-all- costs campaign against Obama of mud slinging, incessant lies, and trying to disparage, demean, and debase him every chance they get. Her vote for the Iraq War is not what makes me against her. Why I can never and will never vote for her is because of the type of person she is and the kind of campaign she has run. She is a revenge filled, mean and nasty person with zero scruples who will stop at nothing to get to the White House. She has engaged in the politics of personal destruction and the real sorry thing about all of this is that senior members of the party and superdelegates such as Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore have sat silently by and not warned the Clintons that if they did not change their tactics of smearing Obama and racism that they would come out publically and declare their support for Obama. A party without any principles does not deserve to return to the White House and if we have President McCain in the White House a year from now the Democratic party has only itself to blame.

   Posted by mjkoch at 03/20/2008 @ 3:39pm

10. Hillary's lie is so politically predictable it's a yawn to MSM.

    But, Obama's truth-telling is a story with a zillion legs because no one can believe a candidate might actually tell the truth, ergo, he must be lying...I'm dizzy.

    Posted by rebeldeb at 03/20/2008 @ 3:41pm

11. Happy Now, America? The Media what a great job you have done and in a few years you wonder why your country is going down the drain. Why the rest of the world hate you.

    The Answers are right with you? You glorify perverts, adore controversy, love distortion, reward hypocrisy, accept shallow ideas and opinions.. the list goes on and on.

    Someone gave you a deep thoughtful and remarkable speech that is been revered, treasured and reviewed around the world and all you guys rant about is why did He listen and allow his kids listen to Rev. Wright., why he didn’t disown him.

    Yet you wonder why Bill Gates goes to India to look for intelligent workers and your Pentagon awards your mighty defense contract to France … you morons.

    Listen, you guys are lossing you stance in the world… The world is smarter not to follow the lead of fools.

    Posted by zap at 03/20/2008 @ 3:42pm

12. What's worse than Hillary's lies, is all the lies of her supporters. Right on cue, just as she began her claims of behind the scenes disapproval of NAFTA, all her surrogates, one after the other came out saying they remembered her being against it. That is the saddes part, that so many people were complicit in the lie. Dee Dee Myers, Jame Rubin and the other slime balls that are all over CNN are shameful miscreants. I fear that Rev Wright may have doomed Obama, but I pray not. We know that Hillary is a liar, a cheat and an undercover War-mongering fool (well the fool part is not undercover).

    Posted by rasalula at 03/20/2008 @ 3:46pm

13. MJKoch, I agree with you 100%. The Democratic leaders did not show any courage or wisdom in allowing this to carry on as it did. If we lose in the fall, we have no one to blame except all the spineless men and women at the top.

    Posted by rasalula at 03/20/2008 @ 3:51pm

14. FREIHEIT, yes I was born in the US and I live right now in sweden. I left after Bush was elected for the second time

    Posted by zap at 03/20/2008 @ 3:57pm

15. Where Senator Obama is willing and able to stand up face the issues that confront his campaign, Senator Clinton's campaign has been built around dishonesty, denial, and distortion. Not only is she unwilling to admit that her Iraq war vote was a mistake, but she cannot even admit that she understood what she was voting for. If her "35 years of experience" weren't enough to make clear that a YES vote for something called "Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq" is a vote to go to war, not, as she spins it, "a vote for diplomacy" then clearly those years on the board of Wal-Mart and defending corporations against employees weren't enough to give the ability to make clear decisions in the best interest of the American people.

    Now it's NAFTA. After months of denying having anything to do with it, her own documentation proves yet another distortion. I don't expect much other than more denial and distortion on this issue. And the major media outlets are still fixated on race to concentrate any attention on this issue.

    It is outrageous to me that the candidate whose campaign has been built around being "ready on day one" is more willing to claim not understanding the issue, or having been mislead than admit that she made a error in judgment. I can respect those who admit and learn from mistakes, but not those who are unwilling to take responsibility for their errors.

    Posted by aesova at 03/20/2008 @ 4:04pm

16. This is not a convincing article. There is clearly no indication of what she was doing and it is all supposition.

    Kindly note the following:

    Fact: It is no secret that passing NAFTA was a priority of the Clinton Administration, but numerous contemporary accounts make clear that Hillary Clinton was personally opposed to NAFTA, and her position on NAFTA was and remains consistent.

    For example, one of the NAFTA meetings she attended was run by David Gergen who has clearly stated that Hillary Clinton was opposed to NAFTA. According to Gergen, Hillary "was extremely unenthusiastic about NAFTA. And I think that's putting it mildly." He said: "If I could just add one other post script, Anderson, on NAFTA, I was actually there in the Clinton White House during the NAFTA fight and I must tell you Hillary Clinton was extremely unenthusiastic about NAFTA. And I think that's putting it mildly. I'm not sure she objected to all the provisions of it but she just didn't see why her husband and that White House had to go and do that fight. She was very unhappy about it and wanted to move on to health care. So I do think there's some justification for her camp saying, you know, she's never been a great backer for NAFTA." [David Gergen, Anderson Cooper 360, 2/25/08]

    Posted by ztormtra at 03/20/2008 @ 4:11pm

17. FREIHEIT, the world would love the groove back no doubt. The world used to look the US for leadership but Bush destroyed a lot of stuff man Now the choice is going to be betwwen McCain and Hillary because I do thing Obama is done. I work for ericson as 1 network Engineer, I do pay a lot of taxes but at leas I do not have to deal with CNN or Fox news. I think the right will destroy US, I am chlling here and I enjoy it but I do not know I will live here forever

    Posted by zap at 03/20/2008 @ 4:13pm

18. Senator Clinton, in numerous speeches and during debates said that while she didn't support NAFTA in its entirely and voiced her opinion to the President, etc, that she supported her President in its passage. She has then gone on, on numerous occasions, to say that it did not fulfill its promise and that NAFTA needs to be revamped. Plain and simple. Perhaps a little research is in line before writing and obviously erroneous and inflammatory article. But then again, that's what sells, isn't it. And apparently, judging many of these posts, that's what people eat up without truly looking at the facts.

    Posted by PDXEric at 03/20/2008 @ 4:20pm

19. While many posters here seem to suspect, as I have, that Sen. Clinton hasn't been forthcoming about her support for (gotcha!) or opposition to (not so much) NAFTA, there remains a significant problem in the "mainstream" media: the reporting on the release of the Clinton archives detailing then First Lady Clinton's schedule is being dominated by drivel regarding Hillary being in the White House at the same time that Bill was being bad. Astonishingly, or not, people posting to such stories on sites like CNN.com are actually accusing outfits like CNN of being "an Obama mouthpiece" on this matter as if Obama wouldn't much rather see Clinton's actual NAFTA position prominently discussed. CNN's editorial judgment, or lack thereof, aside, perhaps it's time that people who actually would like to see issues, like NAFTA, bandied about should post their thoughts not just here but on any number of sites on which the focus is trained on who got stained instead of the mother of all free (and yet somehow extremely costly) trade agreements.

    Posted by macthedaddy at 03/20/2008 @ 4:51pm

20. Now that we know from the 11,000 pages of Clinton White House documents released this week that former First Lady was an ardent advocate for NAFTA; now that we know she held at least five meetings to strategize about how to win congressional approval of the deal; now that we know she was in the thick of the manuevering to block the efforts of labor, farm, environmental and human rights groups to get a better agreement. Now that we know all of this, how should we assess the claim that Hillary's heart has always beaten to a fair-trade rhythm?

    Now that we know from official records of her time as First Lady that Clinton was the featured speaker at a closed-door session where 120 women opinion leaders were hectored to pressure their congressional representatives to approve NAFTA; now that we know from ABC News reporting on the session that "her remarks were totally pro-NAFTA" and that "there was no equivocation for her support for NAFTA at the time;"

    Question for ZTORMTRA and PDXERIC: Given the specifics cited by Nichols above, besides statements made in 2007 and 2008 by Clinton, Gergen or her surrogates that she opposed NAFTA at the time, can you cite any evidence from the period before or after NAFTA's passage where Clinton, or anyone else, actually said on the record that she had either opposed or had reservations about NAFTA? So far, you're just regurgitating the same stories and/or lies from 2007 and 2008.

    Posted by cka2nd at 03/20/2008 @ 4:54pm

21. Liar? Well, Nichols, take a look in your mirror. Here's what David Gergen, someone who was actually there during this time period, said about Senator Clinton's thoughts on NAFTA:

    "I was actually there in the Clinton White House during the NAFTA fight and I must tell you Hillary Clinton was extremely unenthusiastic about NAFTA. And I think that's putting it mildly. I'm not sure she objected to all the provisions of it but she just didn't see why her husband and that White House had to go and do that fight. She was very unhappy about it and wanted to move on to health care. So I do think there's some justification for her camp saying, you know, she's never been a great backer for NAFTA." [David Gergen, Anderson Cooper 360, 2/25/08]

    So, Nichols, when can we expect your APOLOGY? I'm not holding my breath, given that you now have ZERO credibility. Shame on you, dude. You're nothing but a rank partisan who is incapable of objectivity. Pathetic.

    Imagine a spouse of the president appearing in a forum to show support for the president's cause, no matter what they personally thought. Wow, what a concept. Who would think that something like that would EVER happen? Gee, I wonder if Laura Bush walks in total lockstep with her husband?

    Posted by Datruth at 03/20/2008 @ 5:02pm

22. Posted by ZERO 03/20/2008 @ 2:17pm

    A Clinton lie? Never! Don't be silly!

    How can you tell a politician is lying? Their lips are moving.

    Posted by Next Door at 03/20/2008 @ 5:06pm

23. To paraphrase Mr. Nichols . . . "Now that the democrats finally know the Clintons are liars, cheats, and frauds, as most of the rest of us have known since 1992. . . " what are you going to do about it? Welcome to reality. Better late than never, I suppose.

    --tps

    Posted by tps at 03/20/2008 @ 5:11pm

24. If I were an attorney listening to Gergen testify in court what he says he saw versus what the evidence seems to suggest, I would work on impeaching Gergen's credibility (which isn't hard to do, I'm certain he's been promised a plum role to get back into the White House) then confront him with the evidence and see how he explains it. Honestly, looking at his statement, I have to wonder how much he was paying attention. If her objections were strident you would think that would be a clear recollection in his mind. Instead it almost seems like a fuzzy memory for him.

    ***DISCLAIMER: I an NOT an attorney, I just play one on TV ***

    Posted by yutsano at 03/20/2008 @ 5:12pm

25. "Hillary lied". We honestly believe the press is going to pick this up? It would be up there with "Today is Tuesday", "Ellen Likes Chicks", or "Puppies are Cute". We've become desensitized, perhaps immune to the things we take as normal, regardless of how pathetic they are.

    Posted by dentuso at 03/20/2008 @ 5:19pm

26. For the author who wrote this, you are sadly mistaken. NAFTA in no way, shape, or form has cost the US hundred of thousands of jobs. NAFTA reduced import tariffs from mexico by 4%, and our export tariffs to Mexico by 17%. The mexican economy is the same size as Ohio's economy. Only 20% of our jobs are even eligible to be lost to foriegners. If anything we have benefited from NAFTA, but it is even too small to tell. In the grand shceme of things, the effects of NAFTA are soo small, they don't even amount to .1% of our GDP. Don't believe politicians when they blame NAFTA, it had NO ADVERSE EFEECT on our economy. I'm not a Clinton supporter, but to attack NAFTA is just absolutley riduclous beyond belief.

    Posted by torris187 at 03/20/2008 @ 5:23pm

27. Well, let's see: she lied about NAFTA, lied about her Iraq war vote, lied about wanting Michigan and Florida to count, lied about her foreign policy experience during trips to Kosovo and Northern Ireland, lied about the role of people like Chang and Hsu in their finances, lied about ... and on and on and on. What do people not get about Hillary? She is just the female flip side of her husband: a craven liar who will lie about everything and do anything to gain power and money. Case closed

    Posted by Steve1us at 03/20/2008 @ 5:33pm

28. Hi, Would someone please send a copy of this article to all the major newspapers and TV stations in PA? Thanks

    Posted by e.d. at 03/20/2008 @ 5:33pm

29. Lets put her comments in context...she is running for President. Candidates say things that don't always pass the smell test. Even Barack "I didn't know my pastor for the past 20 years said racially offensive things" Obama has said things that are not true. According to Mr. Nichols way of looking at the world, then Obama would also be a LIAR.....

    Posted by blue dog dem at 03/20/2008 @ 5:34pm

30. "I was actually there in the Clinton White House during the NAFTA fight and I must tell you Hillary Clinton was extremely unenthusiastic about NAFTA. And I think that's putting it mildly. I'm not sure she objected to all the provisions of it but she just didn't see why her husband and that White House had to go and do that fight. She was very unhappy about it and wanted to move on to health care. So I do think there's some justification for her camp saying, you know, she's never been a great backer for NAFTA." [David Gergen, Anderson Cooper 360, 2/25/08]

    WHERE, exactly, is the out and out defense of her opposition in this statement? If anything Gergen is equivocating. Or making the suggestion that NAFTA wasn't as big a priority for her as her pet health care failure was. He doesn't seem all that certain of where she even stood, only that she wanted to focus on something else. Plus was he present at al five meetings listed?

    Posted by yutsano at 03/20/2008 @ 5:36pm

31. FREIHEIT, if Obam win I might be back

    Posted by zap at 03/20/2008 @ 5:37pm

32. If we lose in the fall, we have no one to blame except all the spineless men and women at the top. Posted by RASALULA 03/20/2008 @ 3:51pm

    Lets name names ... Pelosi, Gore, Carter ... Carter, good Lord, what does he have to lose by standing up on principle & speaking out forcefully NOW? Silly & naive Q perhaps.

    Posted by sloper at 03/20/2008 @ 5:41pm

33. Blue Dog Dem,

    When did Obama lie? NAFTA? Um.. nope. Check the Canadian newspapers. It was Clinton's camp that called the CDN Finance Minister's Office to let them know it was political tough-talk only. Check the records, sir.

    Did he lie about not hearing Wright make anti-America or racist comments? Um... nope. Think about it. Think hard. We have 45 seconds of video condensed from a 25-year career, and compiled by those with great motivation. 45 seconds from which we are told to judge a man. Of 3,000 hours of video sermon... all available to the public, we get 45 seconds.

    And so we've had, for ten days now, 1,000 research operatives, media representatives, campaign surrogates, and special interest party members scouring and scouring and scouring 3,000 hours of video. The hopes were two-fold: A) find more damaging video that will show a consistency with that 45 seconds, making it appear representative of his sermons, and B) compare any sermons where Wright went a little wacky to the publicly available attendance records for the church. YES! The biggest story in years! Obama LIED.

    So where is it?

    If you believe for one second that if I were able to obtain 3,000 hours of you at work, I could very certainly knock it down to 45 seconds, and making you look like the most racist, anti-American, woman-hating, bunny-rabbit-hating, lesbian, nazi, lazy, foot-fetished troglodyte that has walked the Earth. Then? I'm going to distribute the video to everyone across the country.

    And with that video? I'll ask them to judge your brother-in-law.

    Posted by dentuso at 03/20/2008 @ 5:48pm

34. Posted by BLUE DOG DEM 03/20/2008 @ 5:34pm

    Obama said in his speech that during those private conversations he had with his pastor, he never heard his pastor say anything degrading towards white poeple, Jewish people or any other people. From what I know of Wright's statements, he spoke crazily about the government and it's foreign policies not white folks only. Besides, Obama's pastor did not and does not make decisions that affects millions of American workers.

    Posted by k330k at 03/20/2008 @ 5:50pm

35. SHAME ON YOU BARACK HUSSEIN OSAMA:

    He says today "Typical WHITE Reaction" to be scared of Black people walking by......

    WHAT A FUCKING RACIST ASSHOLE

    Posted by libzsuk at 03/20/2008 @ 6:07pm

36. Wait, she had credibility?

    And we really didn't need White House records to prove she was full of crap, it was already obvious.

    Posted by bridoc at 03/20/2008 @ 6:15pm

37. And whose quote is "typical white reaction"? We all know it's not Obama's. Yet you attribute it to him, and insult him as backlash to a comment that he didn't make.

    I believe you've proven my previous point entirely.

    Posted by dentuso at 03/20/2008 @ 6:16pm

38. He did a radio interview TODAY stating that.....pull your heads out of your collective marxist asses....They even showed the clip on MSDNC....

    SHAME ON YOU BARACK HUSSEIN OSAMA

    Posted by libzsuk at 03/20/2008 @ 6:20pm

39. Libzsuk,

    I dare you to post the link to that interview. We'll all check out if he says, at any point "typical white reaction". If he does so it as quoted, I will apologize for my ignorance.

    If he does not say it as quoted, methinks you're going to need to apologize for quoting him dishonestly and attacking a man based on a quote that you made up or played with, afterwhich time you'll look like a complete fool.

    Go nuts. Paste away. We'll wait here.

    Posted by dentuso at 03/20/2008 @ 6:26pm

40. Hey Nitwit...Turn on TV

    Posted by libzsuk at 03/20/2008 @ 6:30pm

41. It is now time for Obama to decide whether he really wants this job or not. While he cannot attack Clinton personally without forsaking all claim to a new politics, his basic raison d'etre, he must find a way of attacking her on the issues or on her methods. Otherwise, he will be playing defense from now until the convention, and even if he manages to sit on his lead, the Clintonites will have so damaged him that the nomination will be worthless--no less than worthless, because the ensuing defeat will effectively destroy his future as a national politician. In fudging her formal support for NAFTA, Clinton has given him an opening he can slam her with through PA, WV, IN, and KY. Nafta is the point of convergence between B. Clinton and W. Bush as economic leaders; it is the kind of policy that identifies Billary as a corporate democrat, which is precisely why she now wishes to run away from the support, however insincere, she once lent it. If Obama refuses to call out her revisionist history, and to call it out in the vernacular, i.e. as a lie, then I would say he lacks the requisite backbone to be an effective candidate or, for that matter, an effective president.

    Posted by joe vale at 03/20/2008 @ 6:32pm

42. Uh uh... Post it so we can all see and compare to the quote you've provided. We'll all do it together.

    We'll wait.

    Posted by dentuso at 03/20/2008 @ 6:32pm

43. Uh uh. Post the link, so we can all see it together, and all compare it together to the quote you've provided.

    We'll wait.

    Posted by dentuso at 03/20/2008 @ 6:34pm

44. Libzsuk,

    "He says today "Typical WHITE Reaction" to be scared of Black people walking by...... "

    Link.

    Please.

    Posted by dentuso at 03/20/2008 @ 6:38pm

45. No where on the Fox site is this quote on there. You would imagine this would be a huge headline for them, posted there all nice and bold... maybe even underlined and in all caps. Wouldn't you think? Shame on you, moron.

    Posted by davefoley0 at 03/20/2008 @ 6:43pm

46. THEY JUST PLAYED THAT RACIST CLIP ON MSLSD AGAIN....IT SOUNDS WORSE EVERYTIME I HEAR IT

    YOU BELIEVE EVERTHING THAT RACIST MARXIST REV WRIGHT SPEWED BARRACK HUSSEIN OSAMA

    SHAME ON YOU

    Posted by libzsuk at 03/20/2008 @ 6:46pm

47. Post the link so we can all see if you quoted him with honest, please. We're still waiting for you.

    "He says today "Typical WHITE Reaction" to be scared of Black people walking by...... "

    Post it. Otherwise you'll be exposed as a liar and idiot.

    Post away, my friend.

    Posted by dentuso at 03/20/2008 @ 6:55pm

48. Libzsuk? LIE? MAIS NON!!!

    Posted by yutsano at 03/20/2008 @ 6:57pm

49. What was the subject for this thread? The Clinton lie? What an astoundly appropriate way to end it, huh?

    Posted by dentuso at 03/20/2008 @ 7:04pm

50. Ask David Gergen about this, But only if you can handle the truth

    Posted by DEPK at 03/20/2008 @ 7:18pm

51. Posted by DATRUTH 03/20/2008 @ 5:02pm

    "2/25/08"

    Got anything that's pre 2007? Or from somebody not involved in her current campaign?

    Posted by Malcontent at 03/20/2008 @ 7:43pm

52. You still here, Libzsuk? Any more quotes for us?

    Perhaps "Obama just said on Fox "Yes, I did fondle white children while I had massive amounts of crystal meth in my body last year when me and Osama bin Laden were at his cottage in North Korea". Seriously! He just said that on Fox!"

    Posted by dentuso at 03/20/2008 @ 7:44pm

53. "Ask David Gergen about this, But only if you can handle the truth"

    Posted by DEPK 03/20/2008 @ 7:18pm

    See above post.

    Eric

    Posted by Malcontent at 03/20/2008 @ 7:45pm

54. THIS READS LIKE A REPUG HIT PIECE FROM 90S!!!! JUST SEXIST ANTI-CLINTON BS!!!! DUMP THIS COLUMN--IT DOESNT BELONG HEREE!!!!!

    Posted by sagrabe at 03/20/2008 @ 8:01pm

55. Nonsense. David Gergen has stated that when he was in the White House, Clinton was unenthusiastic about Nafta.

    Posted by CarolC at 03/20/2008 @ 8:10pm

56. So what is the lie? I am of the opinion that in a healthy administration, you seek and encourage robust debate. Then the "decider" decides, and all those who participated in the debate get on board with the decision or resign if they can't in good consciousness do so. According to participants in the internal debates prior to the final policy decisions - most notably David Gergen, himself no partisan, but others as well - Hillary's was a skeptical and challenging voice in the NAFTA debates. The fact that once the decision was made to push and lobby for NAFTA Hillary may have participated in the implementation phase of that decision does not make her a liar. It makes her the wife of the President and a participant in trying to make his Administration successful. It's sort of like Obama opposing the war in the safety of Chicago local politics, but taking on a more nuanced position during and interview with the Chicago Sun Times while campaigning for statewide office in 2004 and then voting to fund the effort in every vote since: There is the opinion/position, and then there is the reality of facts on the ground.

    Posted by woody loloma at 03/20/2008 @ 8:43pm

57. DID YOU VOTE FOR BUSH? If YES, please respond to this:

    What is the inference you draw from Wright to an Obama administration? (Granted you say you believe he now has no chance, but still for some reason go on criticizing him. This is a separate matter.) I am asking for someone to spell out the ultimate implications of the Wright controversy in terms of a possible Obama presidency. For ex., do you believe by 2010 he'll try and institute laws limiting white's rights? Give some specifics. Based on Wright, what do you think he'd do or not do as president.

    Posted by winyahn at 03/20/2008 @ 8:48pm

58. Zero, I obviously was not in the internal debates and neither were you. I only know of two people that have spoken who were in the room. Many have posted about the specific comments of David Gergen, but the quote is not his only statement - there have been many including more specific statements about her concerns. The other person - I know of - who was in the room and gone on the record is Bill's former press secretary, Deedee Myers. So my question to you is this: what is your source for the positions on NAFTA that hillary took during the internal debates that confirms your knowledge of the fact that she is lying now. Please cite it so we can weigh your actual evidence against your invective. Remember, Bill did not have an administration of sycophants like Bush; one can not assume that every voice in a meeting was in "harmony"...but that seems to be your assumption; without evidence as best I can tell.

    Posted by woody loloma at 03/20/2008 @ 9:13pm

59. To those who believe Hillary is damaging Obama's rightful place in the general election; I am reminded of the injunction against the Florida vote recount authored by Justice Renquist to stop the recount until the full court could hear arguments and rule. He wrote that any news of a vote reversal during the recount might irreparably harm George Bush's image as the presumptive winner. I could never follow the logic of how there could be any presumptive winner while the vote count was still in doubt; but that is the threshold Renquist had to reach to issue an injunction. As I understand it the nominee is declared by having reached 1024 delegate votes, and both candidates are far away from that with 12 states yet to weigh in. There seems to be some notion that in the race between the tortoise and the hair, there is some responsibility for some force: either superdelegates or sheer outrage to lift the leader of that race across the finish line before the race is complete - even if the leader is collapses before reaching the finish line.

    Posted by woody loloma at 03/20/2008 @ 9:27pm

60. I believe we can conclude from David Gergen's comments that Hillary was unenthusiastic about NAFTA before she was against it. Talk about moral courage! Wow!

    And anyway, it doesn't matter. As we know from the first Clinton campaign, 'character doesn't matter', at least when it comes to Clintons campaigning for President. Well, at least, THEIR character doesn't matter. Well, at least, it doesn't matter when they're the only choice that the Democrats have. Now that Obama is running again, character matters again. Well, the Clinton's character. Not Obama's character. It doesn't matter if his pastor spews anti-white, anti-American hatred. Never mind about that man behind the curtain. Phew.

    Posted by pontificus at 03/20/2008 @ 9:29pm

61. I guess you're calling David Gergen and Carl Bernstein liars too when they both state that Senator Clinton was not a supporter of NAFTA as originally proposed. Maybe the Obama campaign is doing a little parsing of words themselves?

    Posted by Ahi at 03/20/2008 @ 9:31pm

62. Oh my God! She lied! Let's tar and feather her, and send her to Hell!

    Can you say "weapons of mass destruction?" Can you say "Mission Accomplished"?

    Posted by reader99 at 03/20/2008 @ 9:39pm

63. Sorry if I hurt your feelings. By the way can you say those things? That's really all I asked, the rest you have contributed all by yourself.

    Posted by reader99 at 03/20/2008 @ 9:43pm

64. Posted by ZERO 03/20/2008 @ 9:40pm

    She LIED. Repeatedly.

    One of the Clinton's lied? No way! You must be one of those right wing crazies! And anyway, it doesn't mattter! When Clinton lied, noone died! God this is fun! Chickens coming home to roost for the Democratic Party!

    Oh, you do realize that this is All About The Clintons, don't you? Translation: she ain't giving up anytime soon, even if she leaves the Party a smoking hole, she's not going to give up, nosirree! And this is all free entertainment for us Republicans, my friend! I'm going for popcorn, anybody want some?

    Posted by pontificus at 03/20/2008 @ 9:44pm

65. OH, anybody check out the polls today? McCain up by 10! Just the beginning! It's a choice between 'God Damn America' and her Royal Thighness, Hillary Rotten, and a War Hero! Guess which one most Americans will pick! Thanks guys!

    Posted by pontificus at 03/20/2008 @ 9:48pm

66. Zero you would have fit in well with the Renquist court. They just stopped a recount to protect their preferred presumptive winner. You apparantly are so insecure in your candidate's ability to hold on that you want to stop the voting all together. I know, I know..."the math" doesn't work for Hillary. I remember when Carl Rove confidently announced the he had THE math showing a Republic victory in the '06 elections and we can see how that turned out. Even Huckabee didn't stop until it was locked down with actual votes - not projections.

    Posted by woody loloma at 03/20/2008 @ 9:48pm

67. Actually if you re-read the last two posts from me and from you, you will see that I simply replied to you, and you have started to attack me. Time for me to write someone other than this blog.

    Posted by reader99 at 03/20/2008 @ 9:49pm

68. Re: Clinton ...

    Hey Mr. Nation. Stop lying about HRC's records. Just shut up and just do your propaganda fest for ObaMacaca.

    Posted by HelenDAO at 03/20/2008 @ 9:53pm

69. Posted by ZERO 03/20/2008 @ 9:47pm

    I maintain that we are allowed to expect honesty from presidential candidates, and the integrity to acknowledge when lies are exposed. Hillary Clinton displays neither characteristic.

    Hey ZERO, I'm just curious. When did it first become apparent to you that a) the Clintons were liars and b) that because of that you could not support them. Also, I'd like to know when the line of argument 'yeah but George Bush lied too so it doesn't matter' or 'everyone lies about ___' became invalid arguments to you when it came to making excuses for the Clintons.

    Posted by pontificus at 03/20/2008 @ 9:56pm

70. Posted by ZERO 03/20/2008 @ 9:54pm

    You and I love good people and hate bad people. There are bad people among blacks. There're to many bad people among reporters. Take this for example and you'll see why Obama's bad for America and the world over.

    -----------

    Clinton: I don't understand what Sen. Obama is afraid of By Klaus Marre Posted: 03/20/08 04:00 PM [ET] Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), whose campaign for president may depend on holding new primaries in Michigan and Florida, is turning up the heat on Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on the issue. Clinton trails Obama in the race for the Democratic nomination and hopes that allowing those two states to vote again would help her close in on Obama's delegate lead.

    Posted by HelenDAO at 03/20/2008 @ 10:07pm

71. The problem with this article is that it assumes that the meeting schedules prove that Hillary was for NAFTA. They prove no such thing. They just show that she was present at meetings discussing NAFTA. If you were doing proper factual investigation, you'd find someone that was at any one of those meetings and find out what Hillary Clinton was saying at those meetings. More journalistic integrity please.

    Posted by dmusashi at 03/20/2008 @ 10:16pm

72. Although I wish he had been able to separate and wisely choose serving the best interests of his country over serving his President and Commander-in-Chief; I believe that Colin Powell can credibly say that he was not a "supporter" and in fact pushed hard against it (as in "if we break it, we own it" among others). Yet, we know these two facts: (1) His schedule will show many meetings on the Iraq war, and (2) AFTER the policy decision was made by the President to go forward, he became the chief spokesman of that policy on February 5, 2003 before the UN Security Council. When he says he opposed the war, I do not think him a liar. I do wish he had resigned and then spoken out.

    Throughout all these posts, I have yet to see a piece of evidence of anybody knowing what POSITION Hillary took (contrary for what Myers, Gergen, and others have said) during deliberations about the policy, that shows her to have lied about not being a proponent of NAFTA.

    Posted by woody loloma at 03/20/2008 @ 10:26pm

73. Is this what passes for journalism now? Holy Cow!

    Could not someone attend a meeting for the purpose of voicing one's objections?

    Lou Dobbs thinks so:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Le_vPpj7lg

    .

    Posted by InkSlayer at 03/20/2008 @ 10:41pm

74. DENTUSO, here is the link of Obama using the words "typical white person" not 'reaction.': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rZKga-ZMMw or just type obama "typical white person" in youtube, and you'll see it. He did say it, he's the double standard of racism.

    And this article is 100% bull, please stop deceiving the readers. You are hoping to preach to the ignorant choir. Watch the video of Lou Dobbs, linked in an above post

    Posted by crimsonhaz3 at 03/20/2008 @ 10:50pm

75. Mr. Obama just over-reacts to pasport file. He could take a lesson or two from Bubba. This is what precisely happened to Bubba in 1992 and Bubba demanded no heads.

    ----------

    Obama campaign says 'outrageous breach of security and privacy'...

    Posted by HelenDAO at 03/20/2008 @ 11:02pm

76. Seems this one has a lot of new handles coming to Clinton's defense and (gotta laugh here) attacking Nichols with -- wow! David Gergen quotes.

    Here's a tip: read the article before posting. Nichols mentions Gergen.

    Posted by Hman23 at 03/20/2008 @ 11:10pm

77. I am so proud that brave John Nichols called Hilliary Clinton a liar. May I enquire when he got around to calling George Bush a liar in print? This magazine is so lame it is unbelievable. My subscription expires in April. Don't bother to ask me to re-subscribe. Leah McSorley

    Posted by leah McSorl at 03/20/2008 @ 11:23pm

78. Now that WE know, Nichols? You might know. Many of us don't. Now, are we supposed to believe what you say in this article? Why? Because you always tell the truth? Becasue you are providing us with solid evidence? Don't make me laugh!! Besides I have read several of your articles, and you often twist reality. You are almost a fanatic! Of course, you might be proud of being a fanatic, but many of us cannot trust fanatics. Therefore, it is hard for many of us to believe what you are saying in this and in several other articles.

    Additionally, you might be very happy with the support that you recieve from those who desperately need something bad to attack Clinton. But there are many of us who are more interested in unbiased reporting, and as the world progresses, and as more and more people recieve a better humanistic and scientific education, you will have fewer and fewer readers, because these increasingly better educated people will use their brains and not only their emotions to make decisions or evaluate opinions.

    Finally, do you really believe all that nonesense you wrote about NAFTA? Do you really think that closing the border will stop globalization? You seem to be part of Wright's club! No, pal, you are totally wrong. NAFTA has not done all the bad things that you have stated in your article. This is a global phenomenon. You cannot stop it. What you can do as a wise president of a country that is facing globalization is to implement policies that can help the nation take advantage of this phenomenon. For example, train workers, look for new types of profitable businesses that could be introduced in those regions that are going to be affected by NAFTA, etc. The problem was that we had a Republican inept in the White House who did not do anything about this problem.

    Unfortunately for America, we have another problem: You and your beloved Obamabots are the Neocons of the future, just like those fanatics that thought that destroying Saddam was going to strengthen American might in the world.

    Posted by SteveAustin at 03/20/2008 @ 11:33pm

79. I'm really amazed at how some people's mind works.

    On the one hand, we have documents showing Hillary Clinton lobbying different citizen groups on behalf of NAFTA. We have statements of hers indicating support; we have records and even journalists' recollections that she NEVER so much as expressed a single doubt about the treaty, in private or in public.

    On the other hand, we have a Clinton partisan and bagman in David Gergen, who tells us Hillary was always "unenthusiastic" (nice word) about NAFTA.

    Leave it to a certain species of American citizen (and Nation magazine reader!) to conclude that Gergen's hearsay is the stronger evidence.

    Posted by Adscititious at 03/20/2008 @ 11:41pm

80. Zero: We all know what Hillary Clinton should do. To expect her to do anything decent/honorable/altruistic/honest is like expecting a vampire bat to become a New England doe.

    One of the great problems with our society is that nobody ever feels ashamed for being ignorant or foolish.

    There's absolutely no excuse for the citizens of Ohio not to know that Clinton was foursquare in favor of NAFTA, and that she shouldn't have been trusted on the issue. But lo and behold, she wins the state by 10 points.

    There's no excuse for anybody calling himself or herself "progressive" to give the Clintons the time of day, in light of their awful record and personal past. But lo and behold, tens of millions - including many Nation readers - vote for them. And not only that, they happily join the creeps in a vile, racist smear campaign against Obama.

    I've run out of sympathy for "the people."

    Posted by Adscititious at 03/20/2008 @ 11:58pm

81. Apparently there are gazillions of race-paranoid whites and oddly follower-type Hispanics that while morally corrupted are not quite lost enough to want 4 more years of Cheney. At this point Hillary should be REALLY SEVERELY tanking and she's not. Only explanation that makes sense is IQ bell curve, unaware / too busy / dumbed down. BTW this theory perfectly explains Hillarys tactics and their surprising and disappointing effectiveness.

    Posted by winyahn at 03/21/2008 @ 12:05am

82. Well, here you go... The Supervisor of the three Contract Employees who illegally viewed Barack's Visa files was - ta da! - appointed by BillHill to be an Ambassador in 1997! For the career civil servant that she HAD been until that point, that amounted to a tripling of her salary and benefits, and boosted her projected pension by a HUGE percentage. Think that girl didn't owe something to Hillary? And isn't it just s COINCIDENCE that they sneaked a peek right after two of Barack's major victories?

    Come on, you Clintonistas - are you blind, or do you prefer Rove/Mark Penn-style politics? Is THAT the best we can do? Is THAT the example you want your kids - assuming you can reproduce - to see for the next eight years? There is not a millimeter of difference between the Bushes and the Clintons... A Curse on them all.

    Posted by sjduskin at 03/21/2008 @ 12:42am

83. This will be a good ad for Obama: "..... Shouldn't the President be the one, the only one that is capable of uniting people and solve problems without letting any problem turn into crises? The inspiration, my ability to relate to people instead of using intimidation or fight-posture, and my ability to manage or analyze contingencies and draw necessary conclusions and judgments define domestic and national security for America. Such qualification leads to getting problems solved without heading into crises that will bruise and drain America and wound our economy and every other thing! That's REAL security! That's the REAL experience you need! That's Barack Obama! We don't have to use force when we don't have to use force! If experience leads to consistently bad judgments, then what is that experience? You be the judge! How can somone who does not mind duping Ohio and Texas into voting for her with lies on NAFTA be your President? How can Hillary Clinton be the President of this great nation if her experience is on lies, innuendos, and accusing Obama wrongly for what she herself is doing? She is both Ms and Mrs. Hood Wink Wink and double-talk! Make Hillary pay for Ohio and Texas! Run away from HILLARY! Leave her alone! She is TOO DESPERATE to be the President of this United States of America. Her mind won't be steady at 3:00 a.m., worrying about all the negative campaigns. I will make the right judgment at 3:00 a.m. given the circumstances of the call! People's lives are at stake; therefore no one can jump into quick and un-chewed decision without consulting the Presidential cabinet or even the congress or even the American people. Run away from misjudgment. [EVEN the '3 a.m. Ad' Girl Wants Obama to Answer Call. Girl featured in Hillary Clinton's ad actually supports Obama. ABC News - Sun Mar 9, 12:35 PM ET] Make me your President and let us deliver Change We Can Believe In. YES WE CAN!"

    Dear America, let us open our eyes and see how God is fighting for this man, Mr. Obama, who is a serious Christian running to become our President. The cheep and deceiving Hillary's campaign didn't know that they were using a girl in a campaign who is actually campaigning for Obama right now. That's how God fights for people who are humble and means well like Obama. That's how God will fight for America when the right person becomes her commander in Chief. Just read the ABC News excerpt: ----["They were parodying this ad, kind of poking fun at it," Knowles said. "My brother was like, 'Is that Casey?' And we just erupted. Sure enough, it's me." The file footage was originally shot for a railroad company advertisement. The Clinton campaign bought it from Getty Images. Knowles, a senior at Bonney Lake High School who turns 18 next month, has been campaigning for Obama. She attended his rally at Seattle's KeyArena on Feb. 8. Her mother, Pam, told The News Tribune of Tacoma that Casey cried and trembled after shaking the candidate's hand. The next day, she was a Democratic precinct captain for the state's caucuses. If she plays her cards right, she could go to the national convention. Not to mention that she could be in another ad. After her identity became known, Obama's campaign contacted her. "I mentioned that we should make a counter ad, me and Obama, against Hillary," she said. "They thought that was really funny. They actually might take me up on it."

    Now you make the judgment. This is Obama's time for America. Vote for Obama to vote for America'a security, peace, economic prosperity, and political prosperity again!!!!!!!!!! Don't let selfish and wicked politicians dupe your vote. Pennsylvannia, North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia, and the rest of the states should make Hillary pay for stealing their votes.

    Posted by strongblood at 03/21/2008 @ 12:46am

84. Time for Hillary Clinton to release her tax returns. She cannot continue to hide from the transparency documentation provides. She needs to release her tax returns, unredacted.

    Posted by ZERO 03/20/2008

    She can't, Zero. It would reveal that Bill has been taking Millions - yes, millions - from InfoUSA for doing absolutely nothing, over the past 5 years. InfoUSA has been the target of many lawsuits because of the way its sleazy CEO runs it like a private company, and he has been letting the Clintons use the company-owned jet, gratis, for years - which has NEVER been disclosed on Hillary's Senate disclosure. Big Bill is not the only no-show on InfoUSA's payroll; Nancy Pelosi's son, in addition to his no-show job at that paragon of financial virtue, Countrywide Financial, is ALSO on the payroll at InfoUSA, again, for doing nothing. And what does InfoUSA do? It assembles mailing lists and household surveillance data, including political contributor lists, and has been recently acquiring Polling Companies! Fits right in with Mark Penn's background, don't you think? Next Push Poll that calls you, ask them if they work for InfoUSA, or that company owned by Mark Penn's former business partner, Rasmussen Reports. Do we really want the opinion manipulators to own the White House too?

    Any tax returns the Clintons release will be redacted even more thoroughly than those White House calendars - bet on it! I'm just hoping Mark Penn will sue me, so I can send his union-busting a$$ to the poorhouse...

    Posted by sjduskin at 03/21/2008 @ 12:53am

85. "I was actually there in the Clinton White House during the NAFTA fight and I must tell you Hillary Clinton was extremely unenthusiastic about NAFTA. And I think that's putting it mildly. I'm not sure she objected to all the provisions of it but she just didn't see why her husband and that White House had to go and do that fight. She was very unhappy about it and wanted to move on to health care. So I do think there's some justification for her camp saying, you know, she's never been a great backer for NAFTA." [David Gergen, Anderson Cooper 360, 2/25/08]

    SHAME, SHAME, SHAME! How can Hillary know that a poison is a poison and still used her mouth and influence to speak up and support feeding the poison to millions of American children and adults? JUST THINK ABOUT IT! You know that something is terribly wrong and danerous and you still went ahead with forcing it down the throat of millions of people. Can you now see how she can run the presidency? Stop defending her, otherwise we will make the biggest mistake of choosing her over Obama. Barack is by far the best candidate for the Presidency of the United States compared to Clinton and McCain. America, we better not be swooped at this time!

    Posted by strongblood at 03/21/2008 @ 12:56am

86. I like this photo:

    http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Most-Emailed-Photos/ss/1756;_ylt=Alzbh3sDt ej3vUDK09NE3QWMKsMA#photoViewer=/080228/ids_photos_ts/r315812455.jpg

    Posted by sjduskin at 03/21/2008 @ 01:05am

87. The Clintonista who was head of Consular Affairs and either decided not to tell her superiors about the breaches, or ordered the breaches, was Maura Harty. Check her out on wikipedia. But of course, now she's retired, right? And can't be found... just like McCain's blond lobbyist...

    Amazing how these witnesses/co-conspirators just fall off the face of the earth, huh? Nice Fourth Estate we have...

    Posted by sjduskin at 03/21/2008 @ 02:00am

88. Actually, former Presidential adviser David Gergen was on a CNN a few weeks ago and said that Hillary wasn't totally on board with NAFTA and had many issues with it. However, she wasn't the President, Bill was. She chose to support her husband on this. I guess she should have publicly disagreed with him just like she should have publicly berated him and divorced him during the Lewinsky scandal.

    Posted by Qusan at 03/21/2008 @ 02:02am

89. Whether or not she privately said - or did not- or had misgivings about the treaty, it is facts that matter. And she gambled heavily politically to pass NAFTA pulling every cord to get leverage and pass it in Congress. She put all her money in the horse and now she can not undo her bet when the race is over. It is her same spin when she said "she voted not to authorize war but to give the President free hands to manage the situation." And I wonder, this is not even candor, this is innocence, frankly, open stupidity. The reality is that everybody that voted for that war 5 years ago just feared that if not he/she would have been accused of anti-patriotic, and anti-American.

    The truth is that for now she represents that awful Dem Party tradition of meandering and trying to be in "good terms with God and the devil". To look "mainstream like" to dodge critic from the extremes. That is what she is, and for that reason I don't want her to be President. And if the Dems loose the race to McCain, she is to be held totally responsible because ever since she began with the nasty attacks against Obama (specially using that children when the phone is ringing) she put her petty ambitions over the needs of the country and she cutted the romantic story of a big fraction of the electorate falling for Obama, for an ideal that the USA citizens had fabricated for themselves.

    Posted by Frank42 at 03/21/2008 @ 02:21am

90. The changing of expressed opinions to fit what are seen as prevailing views is the result of Focus Group politics - tell 'em what they want to hear. It means that the Focus Group Politician is not concerned with principal or consistency. This is a dangerous tendency in an elected official, because it means that they may again change their minds, and will not be held to their promises. All politicians tell lies, but one must ask oneself what is motivating the politician who changes her schtick to suit the fickle expressions of public opinion is really after.

    Posted by mikecope at 03/21/2008 @ 02:51am

91. So now we learn that Obama's passport records were breached in time for HRC to receive detailed data on his trips abroad. How convenient. And familiar.

    It's a tried & true GOP dirt tactic, in which Billary are well versed & clearly on the beneficiary end this time around, their true alliances with the GOP made clear with their endorsement of McCain over their own party. Billary are well aware of where they make their millions these days & in years to come, and they are not about to bite the hands that feed them, the same hands that pull the GOP strings.

    What baffles, perhaps, is why most of the Democratic party leadership (read: Super Delegates) are so silent on Billary's sabotaging of the party, particularly by Billary's backing McC. Might this be explicable by their being on the same payouts pad?

    Some of those Super Ds should, at the very least, be publicly calling for release of HRC's tax returns now, as well as the release of the donor list to the Clinton library ... where do those hundreds of millions come from? and what do wealthy supporters get in return? These are questions that HRC must answer now, as these are rather more important questions than where Obama travels when he travels abroad (hardly in secret). However, if travels are so important, let's see Billary's far more extensive travel records since '00 as well ... then match those to the multi-million dollar "donations" from foreign sources.

    That'll be the day.

    Pax.

    Posted by sloper at 03/21/2008 @ 03:17am

92. DATRUTH, thanks for posting David Gergen's statement. I heard him talking about it and this whole article is just an opinion piece by Nichols. He definitely is working on damage control since BO is sliding in the polls. Hillary wasn't the one who talked about re-negotiating NAFTA, then running to the Canadians to make sure they knew they didn't have anything to worry about. Hillary isn't to blame for BO's "old uncle" fanning racial fires and causing damage to his own campaign...he, ALONE, is to thank for that. Hillary didn't make him "stretch the truth" about his relationship with Resko. I know it's hard to believe, but he really isn't the second coming. HE LIES...as often as he opens his mouth. I haven't heard one good thing about the 11,000 pages being released...besides this slanted article. I have read many covering the Monica-Bill affair and how Hillary's schedule showed it was possible that she was at the White House during some of the times they were thought to be messing around. MY GOD! I really can not believe people keep ragging Hillary about that, THAT wasn't her fault either. This country is so obsessed with other people's personal turmoil. It seems that the only reason people wanted her to release the papers is just to have something to fill the empty days since Britney, Lohan, Paris or Amy Winehouse haven't done anything crazy in a while. The gossip has been drying up around the water cooler. Too many stones to throw and no one to throw them at? What's next?

    Posted by Aloanstar at 03/21/2008 @ 03:22am

93. Thank you SJDUSKIN for fingering the Billary insider who supervised the thieves that broke into Obama's State Dept records. Let's see how much, if any, ink the Billary-backing NYTimes gives this loyal Clintonista.

    So Nancy Pelosi's son is on the InfoUSA pay-off pad as well? No great surprise, given her Super Delegate inertia in the face of Billary's destroying the Democratic party. Some leader.

    Billary Penn & Co. are desperately dirty players. Time for the Super Ds to step up & shut them down before they wreak more havoc on the party & guarantee the mad bomber's election in Nov. Or won't most Super Ds mind that result?

    Posted by sloper at 03/21/2008 @ 05:45am

94. Look at it this way:

    Being the President of the United States has often required from that President and it's staff to fabricate lies for various (unrighteous) reasons. Would you rather have an intelligent or a retarded lier at the helm?

    Or put differently, ask yourself how this prevents Hillary, or any other candidate, who probably all here and there, at some point in time, are unjustly stating what they stand for and what they've done in the past, to be a well functioning President?

    Also, even though I doubt it myself, she might have changed her opinion on the NAFTA subject and has, in her enthusiasm, lied.

    Personally I would not tolerate candidates that lie. But I am suspecting that they all lie. But that's just me.

    Posted by Varendell at 03/21/2008 @ 07:11am

95. Just a thought.... She was a wife. A wife and First Lady. I am quite sure that she had to do things with a smile that she didn't want to do. She is very good at crossing the isle after all. This IS politics And she is a woman in a frankly difficult position. Remember how much crap the republicans were throwing at her. How much heat she was taking for trying to do something and NOT just serve teas? Any woman in a power relationship like that can tell you there are many times that you say your piece in private, and regardless you go out and sell the deal your dear hubby arranged. She is very good at politics. I'm just saying...it's possible.

    Posted by drae at 03/21/2008 @ 07:19am

96. Just like I thought. Another article written by a really stupid WHITE!!! male who can't stand being beaten by a woman. Check the polls buddy! Hurts don't it? Being white, and voting for that racist ni$%er is just plain stupid-why should I expect anything different out of you.

    Posted by larsen-scott at 03/21/2008 @ 07:31am

97. Bye-bye, Billary.

    Longtime Clintonista super Super Delegate Bill Richardson backs Obama. And Richardson knows exactly what he's rejecting.

    The Billary Penn & Co dirt machine are finished.

    The beginning of the end. Watch the Maura Hardy types scamper for cover under rocks, as the rest of us welcome the light.

    Posted by sloper at 03/21/2008 @ 08:03am

98. The Nation -- 3 March 2008 -- John Nichols:

    '...But, now, from the Canadian government comes a memo on a meeting between Obama's senior economic policy adviser, Austan Goolsbee, and Canadian officials in Chicago.

    The memo, written by Joseph DeMora, a Canadian consular aide, explains that, "Noting anxiety among many U.S. domestic audiences about the U.S. economic outlook, Goolsbee candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign."

    The memo goes on to note that, "He (Goolsbee) cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans."

    Goolsbee, who for days directed questions about the incident to the Obama campaign, is now offering another non-denial denial....'

    Posted by HonestLiberal at 03/21/2008 @ 08:43am

99. Can anybody get a better reference than this? A gossip column is not the best source, but there should be a transcript of the interview on 610 WIP somewhere.

    http://www.philly.com/ philly/blogs/phillygossip/ Obama_on_WIP_My_grandmothers_a_typical_white_person.html

    Philadelphia Daily News -- 20 March, 2008 Obama on WIP: My grandmother's a "typical white person"

    We thought we heard this, but we wanted to go back and listen to the clip of Sen. Barack Obama on 610 WIP this morning to be sure.

    610 WIP host Angelo Cataldi asked Obama about his Tuesday morning speech on race at the National Constitution Center in which he referenced his own white grandmother and her prejudice. Obama told Cataldi that "The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know - there's a reaction in her that's been bred into our experiences that don't go away and sometimes come out in the wrong way and that's just the nature of race in our society. We have to break through it. What makes me optimistic is you see each generation feeling less like that. And that's pretty powerful stuff"

    We doubt this story will have legs, but wonder if Hillary Clinton referred to a "typical black person," would we ever hear the end of it?

    UPDATE: We gave the Obama campaign a chance to respond to this post. "Barack Obama said specifically that he didn't believe his grandmother harbored any racial animosity, but that her fears were understandable and typical of those often shared by her generation," said Obama's PA spokesman Sean Smith, who added that Grandma is 86-years-old. He might have meant that specifically, but that isn't what he said, especially as he spoke of his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, in the present tense. The Clinton campaign has not yet returned our request for comment on Obama's remarks. We aren't holding our breath for a Clinton comment.

    Posted by HonestLiberal at 03/21/2008 @ 09:08am

100. The fact that Hillary Clinton fell in line to support NAFTA does NOT by any stretch of the imagination mean she personally supported it. In fact, she did not.

     http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/14/did-hillary-clinton-reall _n_86674.html

     Excerpt: "The economic team and other key advisors, including Mack McLarty, Mickey Kantor, and David Gergen, were likewise urging Bill to use his momentum to push congressional ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)...Liberal Democrats, including Hillary, opposed it primarily because it could take jobs away from American workers. But as an advocate of global economic cooperation, Bill was drawn to its free-trade philosophy. It fell to Mickey Kantor, the U.S. Trade Representative responsible for implementing NAFTA, to reason with Hillary. One day in August, he sat her down on a bench behind the White House and tried to strike a compromise. "I said, 'If you want to drop NAFTA, we can kill it, but we shouldn't,'" Kantor recalled. "I said, 'The way to do it is to introduce health care, spend a month on it, and then do NAFTA, then go back to health care.'" With misgivings, Hillary acquiesced to the proposed sequence."

     By my estimation, the author of this slanderous article owes Hillary Clinton an apology and should have the word "LIAR" stamped upon his forehead in bright red ink. For shame!

     Posted by JRenee at 03/21/2008 @ 09:31am

101. As a lifelong Democrat, I cannot condone Senator Obama's racist remarks. This year, I will vote for Senator John McCain for President.

     Posted by pontificus at 03/21/2008 @ 10:15am

102. Only a Clinton supporter would show no skepticism for the testimonies of David Gergen and DeeDee Myers.

     Posted by drhammer at 03/21/2008 @ 10:33am

103. *&@$*&$ right before our eyes, Obama's been swiftboated. It's not the truth, but the mindnumbing, brainwashing repetition and volume of the claim. Murdoch / Multinationals win again and the herd avoids having to think for themselves again.

     Hung for something he didn't do, didn't say, doesn't condone, wouldn't follow as president.

     Shot in the skull.

     Posted by winyahn at 03/21/2008 @ 10:42am

104. For the author who wrote this, you are sadly mistaken. NAFTA in no way, shape, or form has cost the US hundred of thousands of jobs. NAFTA reduced import tariffs from mexico by 4%, and our export tariffs to Mexico by 17%. The mexican economy is the same size as Ohio's economy. Only 20% of our jobs are even eligible to be lost to foriegners. If anything we have benefited from NAFTA, but it is even too small to tell. In the grand shceme of things, the effects of NAFTA are soo small, they don't even amount to .1% of our GDP. Don't believe politicians when they blame NAFTA, it had NO ADVERSE EFEECT on our economy. I'm not a Clinton supporter, but to attack NAFTA is just absolutley riduclous beyond belief.

     Posted by TORRIS187 03/20/2008 @ 5:23pm

     Come to Michigan and try to peddle this nonsense. You probably will need good insurance.

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/21/2008 @ 10:45am

105. Posted by LARSEN-SCOTT 03/21/2008 @ 07:31am

     out of crosses to burn?

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/21/2008 @ 10:54am

106. Posted by LARSEN-SCOTT 03/21/2008 @ 07:31am

     are you a typical white person?

     Lets hope not.

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/21/2008 @ 10:56am

107. Amazing how MFN status for China has lead them to treat Tibetans like people, eh?

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/21/2008 @ 11:04am

108. Posted by CRABWALK 03/21/2008 @ 10:45am

     Come to Michigan and try to peddle this nonsense. You probably will need good insurance.

     Yes, I understand there are plenty of open-minded liberals up there who would love to kick your teeth in for disagreeing with them on the issues.

     Posted by pontificus at 03/21/2008 @ 11:04am

109. There's a regular poster on here named MADLIB who tells everyone who will listen that he's all for freedom of speech, but not when it's about something important, like the Iraq War. Disagree with him on that, and he'll threaten to kick your teeth in. But he's completely in favor of freedom of speech. I guess he's one of those 'progressive' type liberals.

     Posted by pontificus at 03/21/2008 @ 11:09am

110. The central focus of pro-NAFTA campaigning was the issue of U.S. job creation, so it is fair to measure NAFTA's real-life results against its backers' expansive promises of hundreds of thousands of new, high-paying U.S. jobs. However, even measured against the more lenient "do no harm" standard, NAFTA has been a failure. Using trade flow data to calculate job loss under NAFTA (incorporating exactly the formula used by NAFTA's backers to predict 200,000 per year NAFTA job creation) yields net job destruction numbers in the hundreds of thousands. Whether the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs qualifies as "a giant sucking sound" depends on the ear of the listener. It is clear, however, that NAFTA has indisputably led to widespread job loss, with over 412,177 U.S. workers certified as NAFTA casualties under just one narrow government program. The fact that job growth totally unrelated to NAFTA has produced a net gain in U.S. employment during this period in no way changes the reality that NAFTA has cost large numbers of individual workers their jobs, most of whom are now unemployed or working at jobs that pay less than the ones they lost.

     The U.S. economy created jobs at a fairly rapid rate in the 1990s, but without NAFTA, hundreds of thousands of full time, high wage, benefit-paying manufacturing jobs would not have been lost. It is also important to note that while the U.S. economy is generating substantial numbers of new jobs in absolute terms, the quality of the jobs created is often poor. The U.S. Department of Labor projects that the professions with the greatest expected future growth in the U.S. are cashiers, waiters and waitresses, janitors and retail clerks. These and other lower-wage service jobs are the kind that will most likely be available to workers displaced by NAFTA.

     Economic surveys of dislocated workers shows that the jobs lost to NAFTA, in many cases high-paying manufacturing jobs, are, in the majority of cases, replaced by lower-paid employment. NAFTA also has had a negative effect on the wages of many Americans whose jobs have not been relocated but whose wage bargaining power with their employers is substantially lessened; NAFTA puts them in direct competition with skilled, educated Mexican workers who work for a dollar or two an hour or less. NAFTA was supposed to ameliorate this problem by raising Mexican living standards and wages. Instead, both have plummeted, harming the economic prospects for workers on both sides of the border.Publiccitzen.org

     ---------

     Although U.S. domestic exports to its NAFTA partners have increased dramatically--with real growth of 95.2% to Mexico and 41% to Canada--growth in imports of 195.3% from Mexico and 61.1% from Canada overwhelmingly surpass export growth, as shown in Table 1. The resulting $30 billion U.S. net export deficit with these countries in 1993 increased by 281% to $85 billion in 2002 (all figures in inflation-adjusted 2002 dollars). As a result, NAFTA has led to job losses in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as shown in Figure 1. Through September 2003, the U.S. goods trade deficit with Mexico and Canada has increased 12% over the same period last year (U.S. Census Bureau 2003a). Job losses for the remainder of 2003 are likely to grow at a similar rate.-http://www.epi.org/content.cfm?id=1545

     but, "investors" are protected...

     In addition, NAFTA included unprecedented guarantees to protect the value of corporate investments and even the rights to earn profits in the future arising out of changes in government regulations or policy. In particular, NAFTA created specific clauses that provide for compensation for lost investments and loss of future profits due to regulations that are "tantamount to expropriation" (NAFTA Secretariat 2003, article 1110).

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/21/2008 @ 11:20am

111. "RIGHT ON POXERIC" . . This kind of reporting (NOT COMPLETE/ACURATE/CONVIENTLY LEFT OUT/DIRTY REPORTING POLITICS . . J.NICHOLS . .NEEDS TO STEP DOWN FROM THIS COUNTRIES ISSUES/MATTERS/ETC . . WE DON'T NEED THIS KIND OF VERY INCOMPLETE/LEFT OUT VITAL INFO SO CALLED REPORTING FROM ONES SUCH AS J.NICHOLS . .IF YOU CAN'T GET IT RIGHT SHUT UP! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH . .I FOR ONE WANTED "COLLIN POWELL" but do to family he has declined . .I respect his wishes . . but we don't need this kind of incomplete crap filling the news waves . .come on . . your Parents raised you better than that or did they? . .j.n . . sure hope your not a parent . .God Save Us All . . from miss imformed idiots such as you j.n. THIS COUNTRY AND FOR THAT MATTER THE WORLD NEEDS THE WHOLE/TOTAL/COMPLETE TRUTH AND NO LESS WHEN IT COMES TO REPORTING THE NEWS OF ANY SORT . . OR SHUT THE HELL UP ENOUGHT IS ENOUGH! ! ! ALL YOU SO CALLED j.n.'s leave the True/Acurtate reporting to the Honest/Conciderate/Faithful/True to the Word The Real Reporters . .and j.n.'s go back to school . .you lost something along the way . .maybe the teachers/instructors can help find where you lost it . .YOU NEED HELP! ! till then step down . .

     Posted by rozz at 03/21/2008 @ 11:21am

112. Posted by PONTIFICUS 03/21/2008 @ 11:04am

     We call them "reagan democrats".

     Tell me POITNIFLOGIC, do I own any firearms? Am I a landlord? Curious to see if your theories meet reality.

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/21/2008 @ 11:23am

113. Bravo to LIBZSUK It's good to have even highschool dropouts like you read the Nation. Good luck on your GED.

     Posted by spur at 03/21/2008 @ 11:27am

114. Posted by ROZZ 03/21/2008 @ 11:21am

     do you mean the Colin Powell that said that Iraq had NO wmd's. Then told us they did, then told us they didn't.

     Because they didn't.

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/21/2008 @ 11:33am

115. It truly is sad that liberals don't all fit into the little theory box that FLOGIC has created. It would make his world make so much more sense. And if cons that disagreed with ChimpCo would just call themselves libs, then he could hate them too without having to ignore off their comments

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/21/2008 @ 11:36am

116. Sorry, POINTI, I put in an extra word, off, so I guess that means something to you. I know it is not because I am working on final designs, while blogging, to run past two different clients, so that I can earn profit from them. It must be because I am an over-educated white trash type with a mental disease called "liberalism", causing me to not be able to type, spell or use grammar properly.

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/21/2008 @ 11:42am

117. Posted by CRABWALK 03/21/2008 @ 11:04am

     Amazing how MFN status for China has lead them to treat Tibetans like people, eh?

     Hey CRABBIE, just curious. Is your protectionist philosophy a result of ties with the UAW? Do you really think that the only way for American industry to survive is by eliminating the overseas competition (thus raising prices across the board for all Americans)? Also, can you tell us how protectionism worked out in the form of the Smoot-Hawley tariff, which many economists credit with bringing on the Great Depression?

     Posted by pontificus at 03/21/2008 @ 12:10pm

118. Mr. Nichols......

     2 everday eyewitness in the White House at the time have corroborated Mrs. Clinton's dissatisfaction with NAFTA,,,,she has been consistent in her posture,

     The testimony comes fro David Gurgin on CNN yesterday and Micky Kantor on CSpan last evening.

     Posted by SMcM at 03/21/2008 @ 12:15pm

119. You've been busy CRABWALK haven't you . .Yes I do mean "COLIN POWELL" (there was a slight trimmer of this 60 year old's (grandmother of soon to be #8 (ages from 6 years to one due in October of 2008) Loving/Healthy/Beautiful/Grandchildren) hand as I typed Mr.C.Powell's name . .sorry about that . .you know CRABWALK you might be right . .but as far as for reporting the news/facts . .excuse me if I seem to be a little bit caucious . . on your info about the WIPONS OF MASS DISSTRUCTION . .there has been so much of this MISSED INFORMED FACTS/REPORTING . .that is really hard for any of us that is truly wanting only the HONEST/TRUTH that I don't think we will ever get what really went on during that time . .or ever . .for any issues/matters that concerns us/and the rest of the world . .I stayed close to the news during that time . . when all this was devoleping . .but they only let us know what they wanted us to know. . even now . .we don't really know the truth to what was/is really happening . .thanks to these so called reporters such as j.n.'s . .there is enough problems on getting the truth or something close to it . . but when we get these kind of reporting it just makes me want to grab these j.n.'s by the ear take them back to thier parents/teachers/instructors . . and have them try again to see if there is any hope and set the record straight the TELL/PRINT/REPORT the TRUTH the WHOLE Truth or nothing at all . .Earn your pay (the Honest/Conciderate/Respectable Way)that is all we ask . .incomplete/conviently left out info/falls in the same area as THEIVES/LIES/ETC . . j.n.'s you are no better than what you print/report/etc. Plain and simple be Totally Honest with us . .the Public/your readers . .or go back to where you started at the womb! . .This is NO WAY to leave this nation/others around the world with such miss informed crap . .just remember this you are what you sow . . I have eight little minds/hearts to consider . .when it comes to ones like you j.n.'s . .

     Posted by rozz at 03/21/2008 @ 12:22pm

120. I have a feeling the Obama campaign will wisely use the revelations Nichols is writing about in the runup to the PA primary, and if the voters in PA have any common sense at all, they will choose Obama's promise of real leadership and a break from inertia and polarization, over Hillary's mendacity and promise of the status quo ante...more Bush in a pantsuit. If they go with Hillary, it's just another measure of how far the intelligence and foresight of this nation's collective judgment has fallen, and we will again get what we deserve. I hope I'm wrong about PA and the Dems in general, and that we'll get Barack Obama...that will be a true watershed in the history of this country. At the very least, he knows that Iran does not train Al Qaeda, and the earth is not flat. At best, he can be amazing, if he is protected and allowed to govern.

     Posted by stonecutter at 03/21/2008 @ 12:30pm

121. Sorry for any/all missed spelled words . . I know NO EXCUSE! . . guess what I'll work reall hard on this issue/matter . . if Mr. J. Nichols works on his . .this could be a start for the rest of these j.n.'s to report/print/THE TRUTH THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE WHOLE TRUTH . .they say you are never too old for improvement . .and thanks to all for reading . .May God Bless and Keep Us ALL SAFE! . .

     Posted by rozz at 03/21/2008 @ 12:52pm

122. The discrepancy between HRC's claims and reality came to light two days ago, and yet we're still not seeing her blatant misrepresentation reaching the popular media's radar screen. What's it going to take to get Hillary supports to acknowledge their candidate is a sham?

     Posted by janieb79 at 03/21/2008 @ 12:57pm

123. Is your protectionist philosophy a result of ties with the UAW? Do you really think that the only way for American industry to survive is by eliminating the overseas competition

     Theory vs reality.

     No ties to the UAW.

     I never sad we need to eliminate overseas competition, that is something you continue to place in my mouth.

     the Great Depression had many Fathers, your attempt to push that solely trade policy is funny.

     I'll tell you what, again PONTI, why don't you continue to tell me what I believe, rather than read what I write? That way I won't have to write to you anymore, it will have the same effect on your little theories.

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/21/2008 @ 1:09pm

124. Posted by ROZZ 03/21/2008 @ 12:22pm

     don't know where to start, cuz I can't tell what you are writing about.

     But, how about this;

     No weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq.

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/21/2008 @ 1:11pm

125. POINTIFLOGIC. why don't you tell me why you think china deserves MFN status.

     they occupy another country. They have slaves, and I know how concerned you are about that! They send poison to the US in the form of food, medicine and toys. They are socialist, they offer free housing to workers and use eminent domain to seize property, they undervalue their currency which makes a mockery of your beloved "free market".

     so, what makes them special, other than their endless supply of cheap labor?

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/21/2008 @ 1:15pm

126. February 24 2001, Powell said: "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."

     Two months later, Condoleezza Rice also described a weak, divided and militarily defenceless Iraq. "Saddam does not control the northern part of the country," she said. "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/21/2008 @ 1:20pm

127. JOMAMMAS bidness partners:

     The Tibetan Government In Exile (TGIE) is honored to submit this report to the Committee Against Torture. Our report provides additional data to facilitate the Committee's appraisal of China's compliance with the Torture Convention relative to Tibet. In it, we emphasize the special circumstances that render Tibetans particularly susceptible to torture.

     By 1979, more than 1.2 million brave Tibetans had died as a direct result of this occupation.Now, over fifty years have passed since our people fell under foreign rule.

     This report evaluates China's compliance with the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Torture Convention)[1] with respect to Tibet. It concludes that China continues to engage in widespread and systematic violations of the Torture Convention in Tibet. China has also failed to make genuine progress in the areas of concern noted by this Committee in its 1996 Concluding Observation

     http://www.tibet.com/Humanrights/torture/torture.html

     ----

     2007.04.20-

     KATHMANDU--A Tibetan monk who served 13 years in Lhasa's notorious Drapchi prison has described how he was tortured by Chinese prison guards in an interview with RFA's Tibetan service.

     "I was detained in Drapchi for 12 years," Sonam Dorje said. "In April 2005, we were moved from there to Chushul. At that time there were about 100 Tibetan political prisoners. Three soldiers for each prisoner escorted us to the new prison in the middle of the night."

     Dorje, 38, who managed to escape to Nepal en route to the exiled home of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, said the use of torture and solitary confinement was commonplace in the prison.

     "We were handcuffed, then they would beat us with a rubber tube filled with sand," he recalled. "On average we are continuously detained in solitude for about 28 days to a month at a time." Prisoners' health problems

     He said the health of most of the prisoners deteriorated quickly as a direct result of the torture sessions and poor diet.

     "There was no Tibetan prisoner who did not suffer from kidney disease," Dorje said. "On a regular basis we were forced to sit on cold concrete floors. So the prisoners were weak and sickly."

     Dorje served a 13-year jail term from June 30, 1992 to June 30, 2005 after taking part in an April 1992 demonstration against Chinese rule in the Himalayan region.

     Nice people. We just have to be patient with them, say another 50-100 years.

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/21/2008 @ 1:31pm

128. CRABWALK,

     More on JOMAMMA, in fact, a press clipping ...

     Chronicles of JOMAMMA: "I Used to Be a Fount of Beer Fart: Now, I am What is Called an Anal Artist"

     (These are excerpts from the local Nebraska paper and its coverage of local "characters":)

     JOMAMMA says that being an anal artist is demanding. "What I do is a lot like singing" he says while playing a tape of some of his "greatest hits" of flatulence in his living room. "And I have mastered some demanding genres. Dribblers. Gassers (sometimes called "Silent but Deadlies"). Honkers. You know", he says stabbing the air thoughtfully with a beefy finger, "People do not realize how much practice and skill, motor control, goes into well-formed flatulence. And all the dimensions that an anal artist has to master. For example, pitch and volume. Then there is the question of aroma. I'm on a special diet for this reason", JOMAMMA notes while pointing to a heap of exhausted cans of Carling Black Label in the corner. "It's a question of getting the right bouquet for quality, award-winning flatulence", JOMAMMA states while waving his hand gently toward his nostrils in the gesture of the connoisseur.

     "People tend to think I really just go for volume. I have heard it said that it's like I have an amplifier stuffed up my ass when I let loose and cut the cheese. But really, I like the gentler genres more. Gassers for example. I get vast satisfaction from the jet of gas as it hisses almost silently out my ass. Then you see the looks of appreciation on your audience's face, seconds later, as they realize that they are in the presence of a mighty fine gasser."

     JOMAMMA wants to pass his knowledge onto his children. "They are already known as anal artists around school, able to punctuate a teacher's lesson or the lunch table with a stonking stinker". His own interest in flatulence goes back to his school days. "I wanted to get Johnny Football Hero's attention. I thought that if Johnny and his friends approved of me, then they could introduce me to girls. So, I became like a mascot to the team, even farting repeatedly into a butune lighter to psych Johnny and the team up before a big game like against Central. My asshole got singed a few times but it made me a name. Around school, some of the guys would point at me and say, ‘Hey, look, Flaming Fart Guy!'". JOMAMMA becomes wistful. "Yes, those were good times. And I realized that I could go from farting mascot to anal artist with more dedication." He pauses. "Although sometimes I did wonder if the guys on the football team really liked me. Or maybe they were just using me to laugh at me. You Know. After all, I farted for them whenever. But did Johnny ever let one rip for me? Did he?" JOMAMMA goes silent for a long minute, uncharacteristically. During this long pause, he suddenly emits a honking blast - one that packs a real stench.

     "Aaaa", he smiles. "I feel better now. I am an artist" ….

     Posted by LV-LIBERTY-2 at 03/21/2008 @ 1:54pm

129. And we must all now recognize ... that everything else she says must be viewed as suspect.

     Now? There's a whole bunch of people who already take everything she says with a grain of salt. Were you in a coma during the 90s?

     Posted by BlueSpark at 03/21/2008 @ 1:59pm

130. Ken Blackwell - Columnist for the New York Sun is a black man and he wrote this today....

     It's an amazing time to be alive in America. We're in a year of firsts in this presidential election: the first viable woman candidate; the first viable African-American candidate; and, a candidate who is the first front running freedom fighter over 70. The next president of America will be a first.

     We won't truly be in an election of firsts, however, until we judge every candidate by where they stand. We won't arrive where we should be until we no longer talk about skin color or gender. Now that Barack Obama steps to the front of the Democratic field, we need to stop talking about hisrace, and start talking about his policies and his politics.

     The reality is this: Though the Democrats will not have a nominee until August, unless Hillary Clinton drops out, Mr. Obama is now the frontrunner, and its time America takes a closer and deeper look at him.

     Some pundits are calling him the next John F. Kennedy. He's not. He's the next George McGovern. And it's time people learned the facts.

     Because the truth is that Mr. Obama is the single most liberal senator in the entire U.S. Senate. He is more liberal than Ted Kennedy, Bernie Sanders, or Mrs. Clinton. Never in my life have I seen a presidential frontrunner whose rhetoric is so far removed from his record. Walter Mondale promised to raise our taxes, and he lost. George McGovern promised military weakness, and he lost. Michael Dukakis promised a liberal domestic agenda, and he lost.

     Yet Mr. Obama is promising all those things, and he's not behind in the polls. Why? Because the press has dealt with him as if he were in a beauty pageant. Mr. Obama talks about getting past party, getting past red and blue, to lead the United States of America. But let's look at the more defined strokes of who he is underneath this superficial "beauty."

     Start with national security, since the president's most important duties are as commander-in-chief. Over the summer, Mr. Obama talked about invading Pakistan, a nation armed with nuclear weapons; meeting without preconditions with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who vows to destroy Israel and create another Holocaust; and Kim Jong II, who is murdering and starving his people, but emphasized that the nuclear option was off the table against terrorists - something no president has ever taken off the table since we created nuclear weapons in the 1940s. Even Democrats who have worked in national security condemned all of those remarks. Mr. Obama is a foreign-policy novice who would put our national security at risk.

     Next, consider economic policy. For all its faults, our health care system is the strongest in the world. And free trade agreements, created by Bill Clinton as well as President Bush, have made more goods more affordable so that even people of modest means can live a life that no one imagined a generation ago. Yet Mr. Obama promises to raise taxes on "the rich." How to fix Social Security? Raise taxes. How to fix Medicare? Raise taxes. Prescription drugs? Raise taxes. Free college? Raise taxes. Socialize medicine? Raise taxes. His solution to everything is to have government take it over. Big Brother on steroids, funded by your paycheck.

     Finally, look at the social issues. Mr. Obama had the audacity to open a stadium rally by saying, "All praise and glory to God!" but says that Christian leaders speaking for life and marriage have "hijacked" – hijacked - Christianity. He is pro-partial birth abortion, and promises to appoint Supreme Court justices who will rule any restriction on it unconstitutional. He espouses the abortion views of Margaret Sanger, one of the early advocates of racial cleansing. His spiritual leaders endorse homosexual marriage, and he is moving in that direction. In Illinois, he refused to vote against a statewide ban - ban - on all handguns in the state. These are radical left, Hollywood, and San Francis co values, not Middle America values.

     The real Mr. Obama is an easy target for the general election. Mrs. Clinton is a far tougher opponent. But Mr. Obama could win if people don't start looking behind his veneer and flowery speeches. His vision of "bringing America together" means saying that those who disagree with his agenda for America are hijackers or warmongers. Uniting the country means adopting his liberal agenda and abandoning any conflicting beliefs.

     But right now everyone is talking about how eloquent of a speaker he is and - yes - they're talking about his race. Those should never be the factors on which we base our choice for president. Mr. Obama's radical agenda sets him far outside the American mainstream, to the left of Mrs. Clinton.

     It's time to talk about the real Barack Obama. In an election of firsts, let's first make sure we elect the person who is qualified to be our president in a nuclear age during a global civilizational war.

     Posted by JenniferB at 03/21/2008 @ 2:04pm

131. JENNIFERB,

     Kenneth Balckwell, the former Sec of State of Ohio, is a political hack and steaming pile of unAmerican shit who repeatedly undermined election law in the state during the 2004 campaign and was repeatedly rebuked in court for it.

     From Robert Kenendy's 2006 artic le in ROLLING STONE (does not include the extensive footnotes):

     But in the battle for Ohio, Republicans had a distinct advantage: The man in charge of the counting was Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of President Bush's re-election committee.(43) As Ohio's secretary of state, Blackwell had broad powers to interpret and implement state and federal election laws -- setting standards for everything from the processing of voter registration to the conduct of official recounts.(44) And as Bush's re-election chair in Ohio, he had a powerful motivation to rig the rules for his candidate. Blackwell, in fact, served as the ''principal electoral system adviser'' for Bush during the 2000 recount in Florida,(45) where he witnessed firsthand the success of his counterpart Katherine Harris, the Florida secretary of state who co-chaired Bush's campaign there.(46)

     Blackwell -- now the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio(47) -- is well-known in the state as a fierce partisan eager to rise in the GOP. An outspoken leader of Ohio's right-wing fundamentalists, he opposes abortion even in cases of rape(48) and was the chief cheerleader for the anti-gay-marriage amendment that Republicans employed to spark turnout in rural counties(49). He has openly denounced Kerry as ''an unapologetic liberal Democrat,''(50) and during the 2004 election he used his official powers to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Ohio citizens in Democratic strongholds. In a ruling issued two weeks before the election, a federal judge rebuked Blackwell for seeking to ''accomplish the same result in Ohio in 2004 that occurred in Florida in 2000.''(51)...

     The most extensive investigation of what happened in Ohio was conducted by Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.(52) Frustrated by his party's failure to follow up on the widespread evidence of voter intimidation and fraud, Conyers and the committee's minority staff held public hearings in Ohio, where they looked into more than 50,000 complaints from voters.(53) In January 2005, Conyers issued a detailed report that outlined ''massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio.'' The problems, the report concludes, were ''caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell.''(54)

     ''Blackwell made Katherine Harris look like a cupcake,'' Conyers told me. ''He saw his role as limiting the participation of Democratic voters. We had hearings in Columbus for two days. We could have stayed two weeks, the level of fury was so high. Thousands of people wanted to testify. Nothing like this had ever happened to them before.''

     When ROLLING STONE confronted Blackwell about his overtly partisan attempts to subvert the election, he dismissed any such claim as ''silly on its face.'' Ohio, he insisted in a telephone interview, set a ''gold standard'' for electoral fairness. In fact, his campaign to subvert the will of the voters had begun long before Election Day. Instead of welcoming the avalanche of citizen involvement sparked by the campaign, Blackwell permitted election officials in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo to conduct a massive purge of their voter rolls, summarily expunging the names of more than 300,000 voters who had failed to cast ballots in the previous two national elections.(55) In Cleveland, which went five-to-one for Kerry, nearly one in four voters were wiped from the rolls between 2000 and 2004.(56)

     There were legitimate reasons to clean up voting lists: Many of the names undoubtedly belonged to people who had moved or died. But thousands more were duly registered voters who were deprived of their constitutional right to vote -- often without any notification -- simply because they had decided not to go to the polls in prior elections.(57) In Cleveland's precinct 6C, where more than half the voters on the rolls were deleted,(58) turnout was only 7.1 percent(59) -- the lowest in the state.

     According to the Conyers report, improper purging ''likely disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters statewide.''(60) If only one in ten of the 300,000 purged voters showed up on Election Day -- a conservative estimate, according to election scholars -- that is 30,000 citizens who were unfairly denied the opportunity to cast ballots.

     III. The Strike Force In the months leading up to the election, Ohio was in the midst of the biggest registration drive in its history. Tens of thousands of volunteers and paid political operatives from both parties canvassed the state, racing to register new voters in advance of the October 4th deadline. To those on the ground, it was clear that Democrats were outpacing their Republican counterparts: A New York Times analysis before the election found that new registrations in traditional Democratic strongholds were up 250 percent, compared to only twenty-five percent in Republican-leaning counties.(61) ''The Democrats have been beating the pants off us in the air and on the ground,'' a GOP county official in Columbus confessed to The Washington Times.(62)

     To stem the tide of new registrations, the Republican National Committee and the Ohio Republican Party attempted to knock tens of thousands of predominantly minority and urban voters off the rolls through illegal mailings known in electioneering jargon as ''caging.'' During the Eighties, after the GOP used such mailings to disenfranchise nearly 76,000 black voters in New Jersey and Louisiana, it was forced to sign two separate court orders agreeing to abstain from caging.(63) But during the summer of 2004, the GOP targeted minority voters in Ohio by zip code, sending registered letters to more than 200,000 newly registered voters(64) in sixty-five counties.(65) On October 22nd, a mere eleven days before the election, Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett -- who also chairs the board of elections in Cuyahoga County -- sought to invalidate the registrations of 35,427 voters who had refused to sign for the letters or whose mail came back as undeliverable.(66) Almost half of the challenged voters were from Democratic strongholds in and around Cleveland.(67)

     There were plenty of valid reasons that voters had failed to respond to the mailings: The list included people who couldn't sign for the letters because they were serving in the U.S. military, college students whose school and home addresses differed,(68) and more than 1,000 homeless people who had no permanent mailing address.(69) But the undeliverable mail, Bennett claimed, proved the new registrations were fraudulent.

     By law, each voter was supposed to receive a hearing before being stricken from the rolls.(70) Instead, in the week before the election, kangaroo courts were rapidly set up across the state at Blackwell's direction that would inevitably disenfranchise thousands of voters at a time(71) -- a process that one Democratic election official in Toledo likened to an ''inquisition.''(72) Not that anyone was given a chance to actually show up and defend their right to vote: Notices to challenged voters were not only sent out impossibly late in the process, they were mailed to the very addresses that the Republicans contended were faulty.(73) Adding to the atmosphere of intimidation, sheriff's detectives in Sandusky County were dispatched to the homes of challenged voters to investigate the GOP's claims of fraud.(74)

     ''I'm afraid this is going to scare these people half to death, and they are never going to show up on Election Day,'' Barb Tuckerman, director of the Sandusky Board of Elections, told local reporters. ''Many of them are young people who have registered for the first time. I've called some of these people, and they are perfectly legitimate.''(75)

     On October 27th, ruling that the effort likely violated both the ''constitutional right to due process and constitutional right to vote,'' U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott put a halt to the GOP challenge(76) -- but not before tens of thousands of new voters received notices claiming they were improperly registered. Some election officials in the state illegally ignored Dlott's ruling, stripping hundreds of voters from the rolls.(77) In Columbus and elsewhere, challenged registrants were never notified that the court had cleared them to vote.

     On October 29th, a federal judge found that the Republican Party had violated the court orders from the Eighties that barred it from caging. ''The return of mail does not implicate fraud,'' the court affirmed,(78) and the disenfranchisement effort illegally targeted ''precincts where minority voters predominate, interfering with and discouraging voters from voting in those districts.''(79) Nor were such caging efforts limited to Ohio: The GOP also targeted hundreds of thousands of urban voters in the battleground states of Florida,(80) Pennsylvania(81) and Wisconsin.(82)...

     Posted by LV-LIBERTY-2 at 03/21/2008 @ 2:23pm

132. Continued, ROLLING STONE on shit-stain Kenneth Blackwell and his Scalia-esque view of carrying elections via careful filtering of who may cast a ballot:

     IV. Barriers to Registration To further monkey-wrench the process he was bound by law to safeguard, Blackwell cited an arcane elections regulation to make it harder to register new voters. In a now-infamous decree, Blackwell announced on September 7th -- less than a month before the filing deadline -- that election officials would process registration forms only if they were printed on eighty-pound unwaxed white paper stock, similar to a typical postcard. Justifying his decision to ROLLING STONE, Blackwell portrayed it as an attempt to protect voters: ''The postal service had recommended to us that we establish a heavy enough paper-weight standard that we not disenfranchise voters by having their registration form damaged by postal equipment.'' Yet Blackwell's order also applied to registrations delivered in person to election offices. He further specified that any valid registration cards printed on lesser paper stock that miraculously survived the shredding gauntlet at the post office were not to be processed; instead, they were to be treated as applications for a registration form, requiring election boards to send out a brand-new card.(90)

     Blackwell's directive clearly violated the Voting Rights Act, which stipulates that no one may be denied the right to vote because of a registration error that ''is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under state law to vote.''(91) The decision immediately threw registration efforts into chaos. Local newspapers that had printed registration forms in their pages saw their efforts invalidated.(92) Delaware County posted a notice online saying it could no longer accept its own registration forms.(93) Even Blackwell couldn't follow the protocol: The Columbus Dispatch reported that his own staff distributed registration forms on lighter-weight paper that was illegal under his rule. Under the threat of court action, Blackwell ultimately revoked his order on September 28th -- six days before the registration deadline.(94)

     But by then, the damage was done. Election boards across the state, already understaffed and backlogged with registration forms, were unable to process them all in time. According to a statistical analysis conducted in May by the nonpartisan Greater Cleveland Voter Coalition, 16,000 voters in and around the city were disenfranchised because of data-entry errors by election officials,(95) and another 15,000 lost the right to vote due to largely inconsequential omissions on their registration cards.(96) Statewide, the study concludes, a total of 72,000 voters were disenfranchised through avoidable registration errors -- one percent of all voters in an election decided by barely two percent.(97)

     Despite the widespread problems, Blackwell authorized only one investigation of registration errors after the election -- in Toledo -- but the report by his own inspectors offers a disturbing snapshot of the malfeasance and incompetence that plagued the entire state.(98) The top elections official in Toledo was a partisan in the Blackwell mold: Bernadette Noe, who chaired both the county board of elections and the county Republican Party.(99) The GOP post was previously held by her husband, Tom Noe,(100) who currently faces felony charges for embezzling state funds and illegally laundering $45,400 of his own money through intermediaries to the Bush campaign.(101)...

     V. ''The Wrong Pew'' In one of his most effective maneuvers, Blackwell prevented thousands of voters from receiving provisional ballots on Election Day. The fail-safe ballots were mandated in 2002, when Congress passed a package of reforms called the Help America Vote Act. This would prevent a repeat of the most egregious injustice in the 2000 election, when officials in Florida barred thousands of lawfully registered minority voters from the polls because their names didn't appear on flawed precinct rolls. Under the law, would-be voters whose registration is questioned at the polls must be allowed to cast provisional ballots that can be counted after the election if the voter's registration proves valid.(114)

     ''Provisional ballots were supposed to be this great movement forward,'' says Tova Andrea Wang, an elections expert who served with ex-presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford on the commission that laid the groundwork for the Help America Vote Act. ''But then different states erected barriers, and this new right became totally eviscerated.''

     In Ohio, Blackwell worked from the beginning to curtail the availability of provisional ballots. (The ballots are most often used to protect voters in heavily Democratic urban areas who move often, creating more opportunities for data-entry errors by election boards.) Six weeks before the vote, Blackwell illegally decreed that poll workers should make on-the-spot judgments as to whether or not a voter lived in the precinct, and provide provisional ballots only to those deemed eligible.(115) When the ruling was challenged in federal court, Judge James Carr could barely contain his anger. The very purpose of the Help America Vote Act, he ruled, was to make provisional ballots available to voters told by precinct workers that they were ineligible: ''By not even mentioning this group -- the primary beneficiaries of HAVA's provisional-voting provisions -- Blackwell apparently seeks to accomplish the same result in Ohio in 2004 that occurred in Florida in 2000.''(116)

     But instead of complying with the judge's order to expand provisional balloting, Blackwell insisted that Carr was usurping his power as secretary of state and made a speech in which he compared himself to Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and the apostle Paul -- saying that he'd rather go to jail than follow federal law.(117) The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Carr's ruling on October 23rd -- but the confusion over the issue still caused untold numbers of voters across the state to be illegally turned away at the polls on Election Day without being offered provisional ballots.(118) A federal judge also invalidated a decree by Blackwell that denied provisional ballots to absentee voters who were never sent their ballots in the mail. But that ruling did not come down until after 3 p.m. on the day of the election, and likely failed to filter down to the precinct level at all -- denying the franchise to even more eligible voters.(119)...

     Blackwell insists that his decision kept the election clean. ''If we had allowed this notion of ?voters without borders' to exist,'' he says, ''it would have opened the door to massive fraud.'' But even Republicans were shocked by the move. DeForest Soaries, the GOP chairman of the Election Assistance Commission -- the federal agency set up to implement the Help America Vote Act -- upbraided Blackwell, saying that the commission disagreed with his decision to deny ballots to voters who showed up at the wrong precinct. ''The purpose of provisional ballots is to not turn anyone away from the polls,'' Soaries explained. ''We want as many votes to count as possible.''(124)

     The decision left hundreds of thousands of voters in predominantly Democratic counties to navigate the state's bewildering array of 11,366 precincts, whose boundaries had been redrawn just prior to the election.(125) To further compound their confusion, the new precinct lines were misidentified on the secretary of state's own Web site, which was months out of date on Election Day. Many voters, out of habit, reported to polling locations that were no longer theirs. Some were mistakenly assured by poll workers on the grounds that they were entitled to cast a provisional ballot at that precinct. Instead, thanks to Blackwell's ruling, at least 10,000 provisional votes were tossed out after Election Day simply because citizens wound up in the wrong line.(126)

     In Toledo, Brandi and Brittany Stenson each got in a different line to vote in the gym at St. Elizabeth Seton School. Both of the sisters were registered to vote at the polling place on the city's north side, in the shadow of the giant DaimlerChrysler plant. Both cast ballots. But when the tallies were added up later, the family resemblance came to an abrupt end. Brittany's vote was counted -- but Brandi's wasn't. It wasn't enough that she had voted in the right building. If she wanted her vote to count, according to Blackwell's ruling, she had to choose the line that led to her assigned table. Her ballot -- along with those of her mother, her brother and thirty-seven other voters in the same precinct -- were thrown out(127) simply because they were, in the words of Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio), ''in the right church but the wrong pew.''(128)

     All told, the deliberate chaos that resulted from Blackwell's registration barriers did the trick. Black voters in the state -- who went overwhelmingly for Kerry -- were twenty percent more likely than whites to be forced to cast a provisional ballot.(129) In the end, nearly three percent of all voters in Ohio were forced to vote provisionally(130) -- and more than 35,000 of their ballots were ultimately rejected.(131)

     Posted by LV-LIBERTY-2 at 03/21/2008 @ 2:25pm

133. You know, besides the schedule, they have people who were at those NAFTA meetings with Hillary and she was pro-NAFTA in the meetings. The people saying these things were on record as being at the meetings. All of these people are lying? And there were several of them, too. No, Hillary is trying to run on Bill's record, and trying to slip out of it when it's bad. That's lying. Plain and simple. As well as her BS about helping make the peace in Ireland and her 'dangerous mission' into Serbia. What a load of crap.

     Posted by brantl at 03/21/2008 @ 2:48pm

134. I take it at face value that HRC was a tepid supporter of NAFTA, especially when the so-called "side agreements" (in retrospect, the REAL agreements) got tossed for political expediency -- 'cause that's when it became much less of a good deal to me. I just wish she and Team HRC hadn't been pretending that she was absolutely, diametrically opposed it.

     What is needed is an agreement that grows all three economies, not one that simply enriches the "existing winners" in all three countries.

     Posted by Egalitare at 03/21/2008 @ 3:53pm

135. I am a global citizen for change....and I know racism when I see it....People who are intelligent and unbiased realize only 15 seconds!!!! of Wright's sermon gets played out of a WHOLE SERMON!!!! this is biased journalism, typical of FOX...what else would you expect when there are half a dozen media cos in the world now and most owned by conservative such as rupert murdoch....of course bush let all these mergers take place.....fcc chair Martin a total tool.....and puppet..

     The following from another article hits the issue head on. It needs to be reported but my local media in NY filter any comments that do not jibe with their preconceived establishment notions:

     from the other article:"there is a word for people who consistently deny the existence and effects of racism while denigrating black achievement. It's called racist. It is not a word that should be used casually, and it is a word that has at times been misused. But it is not a word that we should refrain from using simply because some people might be offended. Ferraro is a racist. That's not all she is. And that's not all she has to be. But that is what she has consistently chosen to be in her response to black men in politics."

     who is getting a free pass??? hillary threatened to sue ohio and texas had she lost....she is already insulting richardson after having known him for many years....because she didn't get her way....

     I am so happy for a possible obama/richardson ticket, as I know that the rest of the world is watching!!!!! we do not hear too much of this in her conservative theocracy....

     Along with many others of multiracial descent or immigrants, etc. which would be all of us MCcain.......it makes me proud to be an AMERICAN!!!!

     Sit on that and spin it hillary!!!!

     Posted by jrs112 at 03/21/2008 @ 4:38pm

136. Two comments:

     1. According to contemporary statements by David Gergen, Hillary Clinton was "never enthusiastic" about the NAFTA agreement. What, exactly, did she say that proves she strongly supported it?

     2. Barack Obama said many times that he was not present when Rev. Wright made inflammatory statements and that he never knew about them. Now he says "Of course" he knew about them and had heard them. Many people have concluded that Obama lied to Anderson Cooper. L-I-E-D. What did Obama and Michelle tell their girls about the hateful statements of Rev. Wright?

     Posted by NYC Bob at 03/21/2008 @ 4:40pm

137. China gets MFN status they way we "promote democracy"...iraq cannot stop us, and now we cannot stop china...in bush's faulty logic, military power trumps everything else....so now bush promotes new arms race and race to control resources and china has won.....even russia is getting in on the game due to bush trying to promote reagan era missile defense in eastern europe to protect our new pipelines in kurdistan/kazhakstan....we just destroy countries, promote instability, then take over....it is a paint by numbers thing at this point....thanks bush....we still have ethanol!!!! so long gulf of mexico....nice knowing ya....

     Posted by jrs112 at 03/21/2008 @ 4:42pm

138. Posted by LV-LIBERTY-2 03/21/2008 @ 2:25pm

     but... Ken... is... black!!!

     Posted by crabwalk at 03/22/2008 @ 09:03am

139. Posted by CRABWALK 03/22/2008 @ 09:03am

     but... Ken... is... black!!!

     CRABBIE, I have this image of you, pacing in your double-wide up in the UP, screaming at the top of your lungs about the greed of the oil companies that you believe causes the cost of propane to go up whilst your 'Stop Drilling in ANWR!' placard gathers dust in the corner. I'm wondering, do you kick yourself in the ass and blame it on the vast right wing conspiracy? I mean, these are the images that I conjure up when I read your posts. Are they somewhat close to reality?

     Posted by pontificus at 03/22/2008 @ 10:25am

140. I think it's positively hilarious that you lefties express horror that Hillary Clinton actually lied about something. Where were you morons in the 90's, I wonder? In some sort of coma?

     To paraphrase the policeman in 'Casablanca': you're 'shocked, SHOCKED that there's lying going on in here'! LOL!

     Posted by pontificus at 03/22/2008 @ 10:46am

141. And the really ironic thing is, that unlike the policeman, you folks really ARE shocked! A little cognitive dissonance, anyone?

     Posted by pontificus at 03/22/2008 @ 10:49am

142. Senator Clinton ? Senator Obama ? ? Senator McCain ? ? ? . ..My only option is to "write-in" "John Edwards" ..We Have A Country Wide Election With Slim Pickens

     Posted by bbednarz at 03/22/2008 @ 1:48pm

143. ========================================================

     Posted by: mchaun | July 25, 2007 02:12 PM

     "Because of Bush and his party's active assistance in the genocidal policies in Lebanon, Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq plus the provocations against Pakistan, Iran and others, I don't believe there will be a Democrat President in the foreseeable future unless a candidate can outjew the Republicans, which is not likely." ===================================================================

     How dare you, a microscopic part of our population, destroy good people like Dean, Hillary and Obama, indeed our whole Democracy for the sake of favors toward Israel from the likes of Bush, McCain and the NeoCons.

     You people are wearing out your welcome, I fear. After nearly three quarters of a century, I have been reluctantly forced into accepting the notion that everything said against the archetypal Jew may be true.

     Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com

     Posted by mchaun at 03/22/2008 @ 7:09pm

144. The recently released White House schedules do NOT show that Hillary Clinton supported NAFTA back in 1993. Scour the media and you'll find no one reporting this lie -- it's only the Obama campaign and their shill, John Nichols.

     This sleazy, dung-slinging freak, John Nichols, brazenly lies: "Now that we know from the 11,000 pages of Clinton White House documents . . . that the former First Lady was an ardent advocate for NAFTA . . . that she held at least five meetings to strategize . . . that she was in the thick of the maneuvering to block . . . a better agreement . . ."

     "Now that we know"? We know no such thing!

     Compare Nichols' lies to this New York Times report:

     "Newly released White House schedules show Mrs. Clinton attended several meetings on the trade pact while first lady. In one meeting . . . on Nov. 10, 1993, Mrs. Clinton spoke to about 120 participants at a NAFTA briefing. On the schedule released by the National Archives on Wednesday, the meeting was described as a "NAFTA Briefing Drop-By" and was closed to the press. Three other meetings in 1993 were generically described as NAFTA meetings, but the schedules provided few details."

     http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/us/politics/21nafta.html?_r=2&ref=poli tics&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

     All we know from the White House schedules is that she attended meetings. That's it! There's nothing about "advocacy," "strategizing" or "maneuvering to block a better agreement."

     Besides what's in the White House schedules, the only other information being reported comes from an ABC News story that an anonymous source said Hillary spoke in favor of NAFTA at meeting of business women. While it's expected that a First Lady would officially support the President's policies, we also know that advisors David Gergan and George Stephanopoulos have repeatedly said Hillary opposed NAFTA in White House meetings they attended.

     It's really a shame that The Nation publishes John Nichols' smears. Whatever happened to journalistic standards?

     Posted by Naturally at 03/24/2008 @ 04:29am

145. 4 July 2007 -- CounterPunch.org -- Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank

     '...Barack, for the second quarter in a row, has surpassed the fundraising prowess of Hillary Clinton. To be sure small online donations have propelled the young senator to the top, but so too have his connections to big industry. The Obama campaign, as of late March 2007, has accepted $159,800 from executives and employees of Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear power plant operator. ...

     The Illinois-based company also helped Obama's 2004 senatorial campaign. As Ken Silverstein reported in the November 2006 issue of Harper's, "[Exelon] is Obama's fourth largest patron, having donated a total of $74,350 to his campaigns. During debate on the 2005 energy bill, Obama helped to vote down an amendment that would have killed vast loan guarantees for power-plant operators to develop new energy projects the public will not only pay millions of dollars in loan costs but will risk losing billions of dollars if the companies default." ... Clearly Senator Obama recognizes the inherent dangers of nuclear technology and knows of the disastrous failures that plagued Chernobyl, Mayak and Three Mile Island. Yet, despite his attempts to alert the public of future toxic nuclear leaks, Obama still considers atomic power a viable alternative to coal-fired plants. The atom lobby must certainly be pleased....'

     Posted by HonestLiberal at 03/24/2008 @ 1:40pm

146. This Nichol's post seems pretty flimsy to me. First, what is the lie? It is never clear. Is it a lie that she said she was a critic of NAFTA? Is it a lie that she was rather unenthusiastic about NAFTA? Does five meetings make you an ardent supporter? Was it really a blatant lie or just an exaggeration or a reinterpretation? John never enlightens us on the subject of those five meetings. Is it really so bad if she wanted Health Care to be the priority over NAFTA? IS the fact that she did so proof that she did not care much for NAFTA? I think that is rather admirable, especially now as friends of mine are suffering under the weight of health care costs. Do those 11,000 pages tell everything? Did she have conversations not recorded in those 11,000 pages? In her private conversations did she express her misgivings? In those five meetings, did she express some dissent? Were they meetings to convince her of NAFTA's benefits? Did she agree with parts of NAFTA and did she have problems with other parts? My questions point to the problematic, reductionist tendencies in John's posts. Firstly, he assumes the reader is on the same page as him and never bothers to offer a comprehensive explication of his criticism. He never respects that some of us work for a living (I have two jobs), and do not have the ability to keep up on 11,000 pages worth of documents. Secondly, it seems to me that both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have tepid responses to NAFTA, and both do not like it for what it could do to needed blue collar jobs, but both are realist enough to know that outright 100% opposition to it may cause harm with the business community, which we still need as long as we are waiting to put together that revolution we never seem to get around too. Perhaps I could have found that answers to all my own questions if I could have afforded that Nation cruise.

     If John's post is an example of the kind of unity Obama is supposed to inspire, then I think I will do as Adolph Reed suggests, and sit out this election. Two of my friends already are. One a Spitzer devotee who is still in shock, and another who does not believe how hypocritical the Democratic Party and other progressives have become. I am sick of the distortions from both sides, Obamabots and Clintonistas alike. You are all crass and have brought anti-intellectualism to new heights. From the scumbag Mark Penn in the Hillary Camp to arrogrant prick Jesse Jackson Jr. in Obama camp to superficial "my daddy started the CIA" Katrina Vanden Heuvel to hypocritical Barbara "I am progressive until I sign contracts with big time corporate publishers" Ehrenreich. The first reason I came to the Nation was because of Katha Pollitt and she is the only reason I remain a reader. Maybe I will just wait every few years for her to publish her Nation columns in a separate book, and this way I will never have to come across this disappointing, self centered, pseudo-progressive web rag again. She never pretends to be who she is not, and even when I disagree with her, I never doubt her sincerity. I have an idea, Katha Pollitt for President. Maybe Paul Krugman, who has been particularly fair minded this whole time, as her vice president. Adolph Reed as Secretary of Labor. Now, that is a ticket I would nearly die for.

     Posted by Michael S. at 03/24/2008 @ 4:00pm

147. Let's scratch its surface a bit. NAFTA had been signed by Senior Bush in December, 1992 under his fast track prerogative. Bill Clinton thus did not alter the original agreement, but complimented it with couple of side agreements - NAAEC and NAALC - to addressthe environmental issues as well as to provide a basis to resolve the labor problem for the three concerned countries.

     After intense political debate and the negotiations of the afore mentioned side agreements, the US House of Representatives passed it on November 17, 1993( 132 Republicans & 102 DemocraTS), and the US Senate passed it on November 20, 1993 (34 Republicans & 27 Democrats voted in favor).

     It indeed, is quite surprising that this (meaning NAFTA) - a routine, regional second stage economy integration measure, duly passed by both the Houses after necessary intense debatew around 15 years ago, is now being described as if it was some plot covertly designed and executed by Hillary Clinton and was potent enough to ruin, wreck and ravage the economic and trade interests of America, and now all the relevant details spread over plus eleven thousand pages has been excavated and being scanned to update the nation and the world !

     What legislative, mandatory and constitutional authority Hillary had by exercising which she had over-ruled and set-aside every body else' consent and adopted NAFTA - being only the spouse of the then President - (meaning merely the First Lady) !

     After the demise of the Soviet Union, the United States of America in its recognized capacity of a Hard Power equipped with all else, seems to be aiming at running the whole world - controling it the least. If the nation of nations involves itself into such ordinary matters, instead of focussing the Real issues like - Nuclear non-proliferation, extreme poverty, global warming, environmental destruction and degradation, terrorism and unending violence acrosse the globe, health care and AIDs and chronic regional conflicts, which are consuming hundreds of thousands of innocent human lives, besides the Billions of desperately needed Dollars for development and uplift programs, in arms and ammunition, what is it (the only Super Power) going to produce for itself and its allies. The acts and actions of the Leader occupying the White House not only affect the American people, but the billions of other human beings dwelling on this very planet.

     It seems those facing Hillary do not possess something concrete and substantially superior pertaining to the real global issues and are out excavating, enlarging, exaggerating, embroidering and amplifying (almost) non-issues as the only most decisive and consequential issues for the US Election 2008. Hillary's role as First Lady in a second stage economy integration measure like NAFTA in no way merits to be made a matter of consistency, character or credibility. If the purpose is only to shoot something at Hillary is a different story. One can only sincerely wish and pray every one in his or her respective role in the United States of America behaves appropriate to the call of the proclaimed prestige and dignity of USA.

     Posted by Qayyum Khan at 03/24/2008 @ 4:26pm

148. Let's scratch its surface a bit. NAFTA had been signed by Senior Bush in December, 1992 under his fast track prerogative. Bill Clinton thus did not alter the original agreement, but complimented it with couple of side agreements - NAAEC and NAALC - to addressthe environmental issues as well as to provide a basis to resolve the labor problem for the three concerned countries.

     After intense political debate and the negotiations of the afore mentioned side agreements, the US House of Representatives passed it on November 17, 1993( 132 Republicans & 102 DemocraTS), and the US Senate passed it on November 20, 1993 (34 Republicans & 27 Democrats voted in favor).

     It indeed, is quite surprising that this (meaning NAFTA) - a routine, regional second stage economy integration measure, duly passed by both the Houses after necessary intense debatew around 15 years ago, is now being described as if it was some plot covertly designed and executed by Hillary Clinton and was potent enough to ruin, wreck and ravage the economic and trade interests of America, and now all the relevant details spread over plus eleven thousand pages has been excavated and being scanned to update the nation and the world !

     What legislative, mandatory and constitutional authority Hillary had by exercising which she had over-ruled and set-aside every body else' consent and adopted NAFTA - being only the spouse of the then President - (meaning merely the First Lady) !

     After the demise of the Soviet Union, the United States of America in its recognized capacity of a Hard Power equipped with all else, seems to be aiming at running the whole world - controling it the least. If the nation of nations involves itself into such ordinary matters, instead of focussing the Real issues like - Nuclear non-proliferation, extreme poverty, global warming, environmental destruction and degradation, terrorism and unending violence acrosse the globe, health care and AIDs and chronic regional conflicts, which are consuming hundreds of thousands of innocent human lives, besides the Billions of desperately needed Dollars for development and uplift programs, in arms and ammunition, what is it (the only Super Power) going to produce for itself and its allies. The acts and actions of the Leader occupying the White House not only affect the American people, but the billions of other human beings dwelling on this very planet.

     It seems those facing Hillary do not possess something concrete and substantially superior pertaining to the real global issues and are out excavating, enlarging, exaggerating, embroidering and amplifying (almost) non-issues as the only most decisive and consequential issues for the US Election 2008. Hillary's role as First Lady in a second stage economy integration measure like NAFTA in no way merits to be made a matter of consistency, character or credibility. If the purpose is only to shoot something at Hillary is a different story. One can only sincerely wish and pray every one in his or her respective role in the United States of America behaves appropriate to the call of the proclaimed prestige and dignity of USA.

     Posted by Qayyum Khan at 03/24/2008 @ 4:32pm