Comments on: Hillary Talks Wright Controversy/Bosnia

By: jane

jane — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 03:42:52 +0000

Hillary says she would not stay with a pastor who behaves like Wright. She says you can’t choose your relatives but you can choose your pastor. Of course, you can choose the mate you choose to stay married to. If you decide to stay with a man who lies and who cheats, is that who you become as well? Are those values which Hillary has come to embrace? Is that why she can lie about Bosnia and call it “misspeaking”? Is that like ” …it depends upon what the meaning of is is…”? Hum….Let he who casts the first stone……..

By: TerenceC

TerenceC — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:09:13 +0000

If you’re not a Clinton supporter comments such as this and others help to cement that decision. I see patterns in the Clinton campaign from time to time and the comments the last 2 days seem beyond petty. It’s almost pathetic that Wrights comments come up like that and I’ve heard the “blue dress” and Monica comments the last few days as well. Whenever the Clinton campaign starts feeling vulnerable the whole “Monica” thing starts popping up. It’s like the terrorist alert levels that Bush use to flash whenever things got dicey for his team. I think the “back channel” is really starting to weigh in on Clinton - and she’s losing her grip on them. It doesn’t matter what happens in PA anymore………but the conversations lately, the lies, the diversion’s, the arrogance - the facts about her experience coming to light……..this thing’s seemingly wrapping up - bad news on the horizon maybe………..?

By: jim

jim — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:40:50 +0000

how can you tell if a clinton is lying? they are talking. honestly, is there anything they won’t do?

By: Alan Stewart Carl

Alan Stewart Carl — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:29:22 +0000

There’s no way she “mispoke” about Bosnia. She lied and she got caught. Now, most politicians have a habit of weaving their own myths, but most do it far better than Clinton. I guess she wanted to seem tough. Now she just seems small.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:10:23 +0000

Justin,

I’m not even sure I agree with the “absolutely fair” paragraph. The way I figure it, if she could put up with the personal challenges she was subjected to by a special certain somebody for over 30 years, you would think she would have a certain appreciation of a person’s desire to remain faithful and fellowship with his church despite an individual pastor’s controversial point of view. I think she and everyone else should be respectful with Obama’s choice and just move on.

Of course if her goal was to distract us from her Bosnia faux pas, then bravo. Once again the Clinton campaign at it’s finest.

By: Maggie

Maggie — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:44:14 +0000

It isn’t fair. Or at least, it’s a highly unnuanced reaction to a situation calling for nuance. What got everyone riled up was a video edited to portray Wright in the most unfavorable light possible. Clinton is here following Fox News talking points by leaping over that problem to wanting to make strong conclusions about how someone should react to a situation which has been misportrayed in the first place. (I’m not saying there aren’t difficulties for Obama here — but the misrepresentation has very much distorted the conversation on the subject).

As Tony says, both McCain and Huckabee had the integrity to see this and not hop on the bandwagon fomented by yellow journalism.

But it’s not surprising to learn that Clinton has no class. Indeed, like the ‘news’ that she lied about Bosnia — this just confirms the longstanding portrait of her as a cynical and unprincipled politician. All the way down.

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:29:25 +0000

It’s not fair. It’s positioning for 2012. John McCain defended Obama. Mike freaking Huckabee defended Obama (!). Polls show the nation moving on. But a Democrat won’t?

By: Mike P

Mike P — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:06:23 +0000

Sen. Clinton’s statement “He would not have been my pastor” is only fair if she is ready and willing to explain to the American public her embrace of Doug Coe — head of the secretive, “elite” Christian prayer group “The Family” — as her spiritual mentor.

See: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080331/ehrenreich

—
An excerpt: Clinton fell in with The Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the Senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family’s “most elite cell,” the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia’s notoriously racist Senator George Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has written of Doug Coe, The Family’s publicity-averse leader, that he is “a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God.”

Furthermore, The Family takes credit for some of Clinton’s rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing “religious freedom” in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics.
—-

Unless she is ready to have her own religious affiliations scrutinized and criticized, Sen. Clinton should have left well enough alone by refusing to weigh in on the Wright controversy.