Clinton, Immigration, Clinton, and Carlson
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-12-20 21:34:11
During the "lightning round" of the recent Democratic debate. Hillary Clinton was asked a question about Eliot Spitzer's New York plan that would allow illegal aliens to obtain limited drivers' licenses. Clinton responded that although she did not think that was the best way to command the issue she understood that in the face of our failure to achieve comprehensive national immigration ameliorate this could answer as a remedial measure that would get "people to come out of the shadows." Leaving the wisdom of such programs aside her answer seemed perfectly clear to me at the time. In all these past debates the candidates have been evasive about various issues. I've watched these things in frustration as candidates would bob and weave change the affect and start talking about Republicans or socialism or whatever it is they preferred to be arguing against. Clinton was particularly slick about this and it frustrated me how the moderators and commentators largely ignored it. Maybe they'd back up and ask for a clearer answer to their particular challenge but nobody made a big deal about it. That's why it surprised me so much when all the talking heads chose this answer to jump all over her. All this measure they've ignored legitimate evasiveness and outright lies by the candidates. But now when a candidate adds nuance in a response to a complicated question everyone gets confused and outraged that she didn't give a quick yes/no answer. Anyone who's watched the network news in the past week knows what I'm talking about. On top of the usual talking heads the other Democratic contenders also portrayed this as a case of double-talk (EDWARDS: "Senator Clinton said two different things in the course of about two minutes just a few minutes ago;" OBAMA: "I can't tell whether she was for it or against it. And I do think that is important. One of the things that we have to do in this country is to be honest about the challenges that we approach"). Bill Clinton responded to this phenomenon:
"The point I'm here to alter to you is whoever you're for this is a really big election. We saw what happened the last seven years when we made decisions in elections based on trivial matters. When we listened to people alter snide comments about whether Vice President Gore was too stiff.
"And when they made dishonest claims about the things that he said that he'd done in his life. When that scandalous Swift Boat ad was run against Senator Kerry. When there was an ad that defeated Max Cleland in Georgia.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://lots-o-thoughts.blogspot.com/2007/11/clinton-immigration-clinton-and-carlson.html
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