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35 is quite a few sources. We're not talking about Dick Morris. And anyway, the Clintons are not known for being particularly friendly to associates who speak out of line...
There actually are some sourced quotes later on in the article.
I thought the most shocking part was that she didn't have a security clearance. Most interns at the state department have some level of security clearance.
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by psericks on Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 09:21:38 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
That's piss poor reporting.
"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow." -- Albert Einstein
by KnowVox on Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 09:28:58 PM PDT
by psericks on Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 10:45:33 PM PDT
Mickey Kantor who supports Clinton's candidacy says that Clinton was informed and involved.
Susan Rice, who works for the Obama campaign. says that she was not.
And Warren Christopher who says that she wasn't in the Oval office when certain policy decisons were made, but supports her candidacy.
That's remarkably thin sourcing for such a broad piece.
Regardless of where you stand on Clinton's candidacy, this kind of thin reporting does not serve progressives well.
How will you feel if and when the NYT does such a thinly sourced piece on Edwards or Obama?
Let's not let our candidate preferences get in the way of our wariness about this kind of bullshit-reporting.
"Terror is nothing other than justice...; it is ... the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs." M. Robespierre
by Bartimaeus Blue on Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 06:21:56 AM PDT
Healy was writing a front page article for the New York Times. He probably can get help from all of the interns and editorial assistants he wants. I'm sure there are front-page articles at the Times that involve (literally) 500 calls and 100 interviews or conversations of some kind.
But if Healy didn't get interesting, named sources, or tidbits of great, corroborated info from several separate sources, then who cares whether he spoke to 500 people or 2 people. Maybe it's reasonable that he wrote up what he came up with, even if what he came up with wasn't that exciting.
But, seriously, the only reason the article ended up being as long, overblown and prominently placed as it was is that the Times had to fill some white space on an issue that came out the day after a 4-day weekend. Under normal circumstances, that might have turned into a much shorter, less opinionated article that would have run on A14.
The real moral here is that it's really mean to run a thinly sourced negatively slanted think piece about someone just because you have space to fill. Either flesh out the article and justify the negative slant, or keep it short and run it inside and start a nice human interest story on the front page instead.
by sclminc on Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 08:51:31 AM PDT
by Zagatzz on Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 04:48:38 AM PDT
try reading the comment you are responding to BEFORE embarrass yourself. better yet, try reading the article in full.
by MJ via Chicago on Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 08:49:26 AM PDT
on foreign relations. To call Mrs. Clinton inadequate because her experience may not have been as 'experienced' as one would expect it to be is simply wrongheaded.
Point to one newly-elected president who had a deep foreign policy background...and if you're going to use George Bush I, well God help you.
The point is, no one measures up. Senator Clinton, though not my candidate of choice, has perhaps the most experience 'being around' the day to day decision making and policy discussion of a sitting president.
I don't know if that qualifies her or not. I do know that our top three democratic candidates have about the same amount of foreign experience...Obama, perhaps, less so because of his shorter tenure in the Senate...and in spite of the fact that he heads a foreign subcommittee (which has yet to convene)
by emmabrody on Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 10:30:21 PM PDT
I've said several times in this thread that Clinton is absolutely qualified to be president --- what I don't agree with is her argument that she somehow has the "most experience" or was the "face of American foreign policy overseas" or, as Bill put it, "the most qualified non-incumbent" he's ever voted for. Bill said outright on Charlie Rose that Obama in comparison would be a "roll of the dice." That 's outrageous.
Bill Richardson has been a congressperson, governor, cabinet secretary, UN ambassador, and hostage negotiator. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd have been in the Senate thirty years with major legislative accomplishments. It's not clear who deserves the mantle of most experience, but it certainly isn't Hillary.
by psericks on Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 10:52:15 PM PDT
Hillary Clinton for sure has some unique experience that none of the other candidates can bring to the table BUT it's a far sight short of being 'the face of foreign policy'. How so many people can be falling for that bullshit is amazing. How she can keep blathering about it with a straight face is even more amazing.
He's not an African American candidate, he's and American candidate. - Jean Weiss on CNN
by vernonbc on Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 11:18:39 PM PDT
You've crossed the dividing line between political analysis and religion. This is The Cause. If you know - absolutely, certainly - deep within your heart of hearts that Hillary has the most experience and is the most electable, then it must be true!!
How could it be otherwise??
by Miles in WesternWA on Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 11:28:17 PM PDT
Blinded by the cause.
Once the faintest stirring of hope became possible, the dominion of the plague was ended. ~Camus
by ayawisgi on Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 05:54:59 AM PDT
"the face of foreign policy"? Link, please.
Bill said she was the face of America to much of the world. That is a very different claim than the one you or the diarist have put in the mouths of the Clinton campaign.
"I'm for Hillary because I believe that the United States right now is in a world of crap." - spoken by a Nevada voter
by SaneSoutherner on Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 07:30:23 AM PDT
Agreed.
Psst! Don't panic
by Quicklund on Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 08:59:01 AM PDT
I don't accept the premise that it's an either/or propostion. No, she was not the arbiter and controller of foreign policy in the Whitehouse. Yes, she had some influence, and has some good relationships with foreign governments and respect worldwide that are an advantage to her over Obama.
by SaneSoutherner on Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 10:53:27 AM PDT
She hasn't had some level of experience that supports a run based on that purported experience. She - like Obama - has to be able to point to specific examples of her sound foreign policy judgment and be very specific about how she would handle some current situations. I have to be honest: her AUMF and K-L votes, combined with her using the Pakistan/Al Queda intervention question as an opportunity to score disingenuous political points rather than to actually discuss how she would handle this kind of situation do not combine to give me a lot of comfort. I think a lot of people feel she should win because she has this "experience," and it will hurt her to the extent that that bubble is burst.
by Mother of Zeus on Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 05:02:33 AM PDT
That's far more than Biden or Dodd. Don't tell me you don't believe her.
McCain's 3AM ad is really a Flomax commercial.
by jhecht on Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 05:47:27 AM PDT
was heading up the universal healthcare project. A progressive objective for 50 years. And even though we had both houses of Congress, it failed catastrophically.
She has somewhat more experience than Edwards or Obama. But what is most important, IMO, is judgment, not experience.
Enterpriser; Hard core Libertarian: +6.63 / -4.41
by jimsaco on Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 06:48:03 AM PDT
I don't like her, but I think she is qualified to be president. However, this co-president notion they're trying to sell is absurd and I'm glad someone has taken on the debunking of it. Obama is on level field with her on experience and if you want a real foreign policy expert, vote for Biden or Richardson.
Or wait for my diary on Edwards having the right right kind of experience. :-)
by ayawisgi on Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 05:54:01 AM PDT
Especially when after all this claimed experience not only as the "second president" but as a senator who voted for war not once a, after it was seen as gross manipulation, but twice. Experience is only a valid plus if one has learned from it. She has shown no indication she has learned anything from her experience in the Senate and the inverse is true in the WH.
She pushed a health plan in 1993. She experienced a determined opposition. Instead of recalibrating and going at it again. She gave up entirely and then went on to accept a fair sum of money from the people that financed the opposition of a plan that is apparent to anyone who has to pay for health insurance and isn't rich is something we needed to start the debate on 14 years ago - as she did- and finish it with a plan- not give up - as she did.
One could write off 1993 as inexperience. But try to explain the next 14 years to me. Where has she learned from her experience to the benefit of constituents not to her or husbands benefit?
The NYT did a fair to middling job and I hope it helps the other candidates completely obliterate any vestiges of the inevitability of her nomination. Let her run on her own record like the other candidates did.
Presidential Politics should never be a family business. If we allow it to be , we've learned nothing from our collective experience. Then we deserve everything we aren't going to get.
Support Col Hackworth's because tomorrow is just a promise, not a guarantee
by Dburn on Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 07:56:22 AM PDT
The new meme is that Obama is "arrogant". What they really want to imply that he is "Uppity". But Uppity is so 20th Century.
by fromdabak on Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 09:26:40 AM PDT
... because she hasn't denied it yet.
by Bob Johnson on Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 11:32:19 PM PDT
for that matter, you haven't denied having coitus with sheep, so should we take that as a given?
My choices: 1. Obama. 1. Edwards. ... 9,999,999. Hillary.
by blue vertigo on Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 03:32:57 PM PDT
Senator Clinton, though not my candidate of choice, has perhaps the most experience 'being around' the day to day decision making and policy discussion of a sitting president.
So does Barney, but I wouldn't vote for him either.
Let the word go forth from this time and place...that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--Obama '08
by Azdak on Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 05:48:15 AM PDT
wide narrow
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