Mommie dearest: Chelsea speaks, but won’t talk to journalists April 26, 2008
Posted by chuckwh in Election 2008, elections, Hillary, Hillary Clinton, News and politics, Politics, primaries.Tags: Bill Clinton, Chelsea, Chelsea Clinton, Clintons, elections, Hillary, Hillary Clinton, Obama, presidential primaries, primaries
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In Philadelphia Monday night for a final rally before the must-win Pennsylvania primary, Chelsea Clinton told a packed crowd that she and her father are having an “implicit competition about who is, like, duh, more normal.”
Bill Clinton is the master of retail politicking, widely acknowledged to have few peers as a campaigner. But ever since the red nosed beacon of 21st century racism began making an utter fool of himself, there’s a case to be made that his 28-year-old daughter is the more valuable advocate for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. After all, she is allowed to speak in front of thousands, but the Clintons won’t let her speak to journalists. Smart move, considering the family’s sordid past. The question really becomes, though, why is the media giving her a free pass? Why are they afraid to ask her questions? Is she still a child?
Meanwhile, the former president has stumbled badly at times, veering wildly off message, picking fights with reporters and making ill-considered comments that have caused his wife’s campaign to relegate him to out-of-the-way locales and made even progressives consider the nickname “Bubba” legitimate fodder. The once-and-maybe-future first daughter, on the other hand, has loosened up and eased into her role as a surrogate, hitting her stride just when her mother needed it most, and done a marvelous job of keeping at arms length from reporters. Sites like Politico unabashedly sing her praises, partly out of fear that the Clintons may somehow still wrest the nomination from Obama and not have access to whatever they think they’ll need access to as journalists, perhaps, or maybe somehow too ashamed to ask why a major political figure like Chelsea will not talk to the press.
And, a major political figure is exactly what Chelsea has become.
Despite the fact that she is now a major figure on the Hillary campaign stump, she will not talk to reporters, and even spurned a child reporter in a now famous diss.
In the last three and a half months alone, Chelsea Clinton has traveled to 37 states, logging more than 75,000 miles on commercial airlines, speaking at more than 115 college campuses and answering more than 1,500 questions in total, said Philippe Reines, a senior aide to the campaign.
“She’s definitely her mom’s secret weapon,” said Erika Alexander, an actress who has appeared on the stump with Chelsea. “[Hillary Clinton] has no better messenger. But if you are a journalist, she’s like a scorpion. Good luck getting near her.”
Chelsea also has helped take some of the burden off her mother by reaching out to undecided superdelegates and placing as many as 80 thank-you calls a day to organizers of fundraisers and other events. The thank-you’s have even included the many vendors that are owed huge sums of money by the Clintons.
Earlier this month, when a small printing press in Pennsylvania sent a bill to the Clintons for a $300,000 printing job, it was Chelsea who called and told them to back off.
And, even earlier this month, when Minnesota superdelegate Nancy Larson decided to endorse Sen. Barack Obama, it was Chelsea Clinton who picked up the phone to find out why.
Larson told The New York Times that the conversation was “heartbreaking” because Chelsea was a “delightful young woman who loves her mother very much. I mean, I could almost hear the suckling still from her pursed little lips, and I now understand why the Clintons are reluctant to expose her to the mass media.” The incident stood in stark contrast to media accounts of Bill Clinton’s private discussion with uncommitted California superdelegates several weeks earlier, in which the superdelegates reported being stunned by his angry response when one of them broached the subject of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s endorsement of Obama.
Asked if Chelsea was proving to be a more effective surrogate than her father, Reines said, “Sen. Clinton is lucky to have two fantastic surrogates who know her best and how great a president she’d be, working tirelessly on her behalf. Well, I mean, I’m not sure Bill would be comfortable being called a surrogate, since he’s used so many surrogates in his marriage, but, well, you know what I mean. ”
So far, then, it is Chelsea who has handled delicate situations with aplomb, and it is Chelsea who has emerged unscratched from public events where her family’s most sensitive issues — such as the Monica Lewinsky scandal — were suddenly and unexpectedly thrust upon her by questioners.
Only once has she drawn unfavorable public notice — and that for an absurdly disciplined approach that led her to refuse an interview request from a 9-year-old student journalist. Since then, the press has gotten smart, and has been afraid to challenge the notion that she should be asked questions on the stump.
Bill Clinton, by contrast, has appeared volatile and contentious at times as he careens from controversy to controversy, seemingly unable to grasp the realities of a new political environment where every statement is captured on audio or video and can be immediately vetted for accuracy.
However, that hasn’t stopped the press from its relentless pursuit of Obama’s relationship with a pastor. The question of this campaign hasn’t been, “How do you control your husband?” It’s been, “how do you control your pastor?”
Ferraro: If I Wasn’t a Woman, I Wouldn’t Have Been a VP Candidate March 11, 2008
Posted by chuckwh in News and politics.Tags: Geraldine Ferraro, Hillary, Hillary and racism, Hillary Clinton, racism
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The first female vice presidential candidate and a fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton, Geraldine Ferraro, admitted through a device known by psychiatrists as projection that she never would have been named as Walter Mondale’s running mate as part of one of the worst tickets in history if she had not been a woman.
“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” Geraldine Ferraro told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, Calif., in an interview published Friday regarding the current Democratic presidential front-runner.
The comment drew such a visible laugh among the therapists and psychiatrists of the world that the planet shifted on its axis about one degree.
How to Get Out of Iraq March 7, 2008
Posted by chuckwh in News and politics.Tags: Bush, Hillary, Hillary Iraq, Hillary leaving Iraq, Iraq, leaving Iraq
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I haven’t had much time to write lately. Writing is my passion. I write fiction, too, besides this blog (believe it not!). Anyway, no time to write much.
I think rather than trying to sound scholarly about this difficult issue, I’ll just let my writing mind shut up for a bit and say what needs to be done for the next president to exit Iraq.
First off, even though I’m a bit of a Obamanut, I need to say that I agree with those who say if America pulls out immediately, it will be a disaster. If you can imagine a giant cherry bomb filled with a bunch of people igniting, spreading their limbs all over the place, you can only begin to imagine what will happen when we leave. The American invasion created a cherry bomb that makes Yugoslavia look like a picnic among friends.
First thing we need to do is just admit to ourselves, all of us, that we RE-ELECTED the dude who got us into this mess.
We also might want to think about how Belgrade could have been a different city if Bill Clinton had thought more like Obama.
You can argue with me that Bush didn’t win either of his elections. But it’s not like you rose up and overthrew him, so the argument is, now, bogus.
The responsibility, therefore, is among us all. And even if it’s not, even if you won’t admit to ANY responsibility, you have to deal with facts.
Since the invasion, there are conservative estimates that say at least 80,000 Iraqis have died. But that’s, like, the lowest end of lowest ends. Most reasonable estimates are that the American invasion has cost many, many more lives than the evil dictator did. And their lives were lost in the most horrific way. You step out of your house to go shopping, and you don’t know if you’ll be killed. At least under Saddam, pretty much, if you kept your mouth shut, you were okay.
So, like it or not, we have a moral obligation to at least make a reasonable effort to help these people survive the American policy that, we, the American people, created.
So you look at Iraq, and my argument, and you’ve got to say, “Whoah, McCain is right, another hundred years.”
Not so.
I honestly think we could “win the war” if we spend twice the amount we spend in military spending on education in Iraq (and if we have to, the rest of the Middle Eastern poor areas) .
By that I mean, for every dollar we spend on military dollars, we spend two on education in the country we are occupying (be it Iraq or Afghanistan).
Actually, that should be a bill of Congress. Sure, a lot of good, righteous, rural people would complain on the domestic front, saying, “what about us?” but the war would be over in about a year. And those good people would be taken care of by the simple fact that the war is over. A good man on the pulpit would explain that to the American people, much in the same way that the American people have been bled to believe in Iraq and other futilities.
Look. We have to pull out anyway. Why not leave gifts behind us, at the very least. And I’m not talking about Bibles, or books on Thomas Jefferson. Let’s create libraries in Iraq, full of books written by people of that region.
You know what? I bet most literary types in Iraq or anywhere else in the Middle East are NOT into suicide bombings. Have you read any Middle Eastern literature? I have. Writers tend to be peace mongers. Why not help their own intellectuals spread the word?
Why is this such a difficult concept for Americans and their politicians?
It’s never been hard for the Saudis, who spread their own fear, via Wahabbism.
How stupid will we continue to be?
We reap what we sow.
https://thegoreyears.wordpress.com/iraq-during-the-gore-years/
Canadians Attack America — Pictures of Hillary Found, Confiscated March 7, 2008
Posted by chuckwh in News and politics.Tags: bombing, Canada, Hillary, Times Square, Times Square bombing
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NEW YORK – WNBC.com is reporting that Canada is saying that at least one of the four suspects who may have been connected to the dastardly Times Square explosion that occurred was carrying a picture of Hillary Rodham Clinton taking a picture of herself sitting alone on a bed at 3 am sometime during the Clinton Presidency.
Four men trying to cross the border tried to flee a checkpoint when Canadian officials tried to question them, investigators said. Two of the men got away, officials said.
However, two of them were captured, and both admitted they were fleeing to the border because, in one of the fleer’s words, “Canada is a frickin’ icicle.”
The men left behind a backpack with photos of various New York City locations including Times Square, according to sources speaking on condition of anonymity.
But the newsbreaker is this: One of the photos allegedly included a picture of Hillary Rodham Clinton taking a picture of herself sitting alone on a bed at 3 am sometime during the Clinton Presidency.
The picture was immediately confiscated, and New York authorities were summoned to the scene.
Drunk Chelsea Backs Obama February 17, 2008
Posted by chuckwh in News and politics.Tags: Chelsea, Chelsea Clinton, Hillary, Hillary Clinton, Obama
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You’re not gonna believe this. My wife and were sitting in a bar in Lanaii and in comes Chelsea Clinton. So to be polite, we ordered her a drink.
Next thing we knew, she was sitting at our table. So we got to chatting, and we found her delightful.
A couple hours and a few Mai Tais later we got around to the topic of her parents.
So I got up the nerve to ask her what she thought about her mom for president.
She leaned in, and said, in what I assume was her best conspiratorial voice, “You know my mom would kill me, I mean, she won’t let me talk to anyone … but I am secretly rooting for Obama.”
My wife and I were speechless.
“I mean,” she continued, “I love my mom, but she’s a little over protective. I mean that whole bit about how they want me to be 13? Please. I’m 28 frickin years old. Who wants an over protective mom for president?
“I mean Obama’s just got his head screwed on straight, you know? He’s not just sitting there thinking ‘Oh, I’m a Democrat, I have to think this way’, or ‘I’m a Republican I have to think that way’. He uses his own goddamn brain, you know? Have you read his book? My mom says he doesn’t know the issues. Ha! that’s a laugh.”
Yeah, I said, we both read it.
And he totally gets it, I said, but I just hope he can fix it.
“Well,” Chelsea said, “at least he knows what’s wrong. I’ll think he’ll do more than write a 1700 page health care plan you know what I mean? ”
“Holy shit.”
“Don’t tell anybody I said that,” said Chelsea, “my mom would kill me.”
Chelsea Clinton’s Age Will Be Updated February 17, 2008
Posted by chuckwh in Hillary, Hillary Clinton, News and politics.Tags: Chelsea, Chelsea Clinton, Hillary, Hillary Clinton, Obama
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In a move to further protect Chelsea Clinton from the media, The Clintons today declared that a mistake was made in her birth certificate, and that she is actually 13 years old, not 28, as had been previously alleged.
Harold Ickes, one of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s senior advisors, made the announcement before a rambling strategy session today. “She’s 13. There was a mistake on her birth certificate,” said Ickes. “The Clinton campaign is determined to protect Chelsea from the media hounds, and this correction is part of that strategy.”
Chelsea Clinton, who is campaigning in Democratic front runner Barack Obama’s home state of Hawaii, would not comment on this newest development.
Asked by reporters how to explain Chelsea’s appearances among the Clintons during Bill Clinton’s presidency, where she appears to be a young teenager, Ickes replied that the individual seen in photographs and news footage was a surrogate. “As you know, the Clintons have many friends in the film industry, and the good people at Industrial Light and Magic created a computer-generated image of what the Clinton’s daughter would have looked like as a 12 year old. They then took that information and hired a body double.”
Told by reporters that there were still some general issues with this kind of time line, Ickes became visibly irritated and began to detail the Clinton campaign’s strategy for preventing Obama from winning the Democratic nomination. “Sending Chelsea to Hawaii, Obama’s home turf, will re-invigorate this campaign and deliver a firm message that the Clintons belong back in the White House.”
Although the 13 year old will be campaigning actively for her mother now, she will still not be allowed to talk to the press. “No,” confirmed Ickes, “absolutely not. And I think you can see why. She’s 13 years old, for God’s sake.”
Desperate For Cash, Clinton Campaign Raids Bührle, Nabs $163 Million In Art February 13, 2008
Posted by chuckwh in News and politics.Tags: art theft, Bührle, Bührle heist, Hillary, Hillary and Obama, Obama and Hillary, primaries
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Zurich police today identified the thieves who recently stole art masterpieces from the renowned Bührle collection as having “direct ties” to Vice President Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The campaign, which has been reeling as a result of a string of several primary and caucus losses at that hands of Illinois Senator Barack Obama, is said to be desperate for cash, and will use the proceeds from the art heist to, in the words of deputy campaign manager Mike Henry, “make our stand at the Alamo. 
We’ll saturate the great state of Texas with ads on every radio and TV station in the state, and we’ll make our case for change with some beef.”
Henry was relieved of his duties later in the evening, but there is no indication if he was fired because of his involvement with the heist or because he simply did a sloppy job of carrying out the heist. “They came in with guns blazing,” Zurich police spokesman Marco Cortesi told the press today, “and screaming, ‘Remember the Alamo!'”.
Image URL: Paul Cezanne’s painting “The Boy in the Red Vest”, http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2008/02/11/PH2008021102650.jpg
The Ultimate Winner February 1, 2008
Posted by chuckwh in News and politics.Tags: children, Hillary, Obama
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I watched the California debates with trepidation.
After S. Carolina, I was pretty much ridden with the usual fear (politicians suck, etc).
But as I watched Obama and Hillary get into what Wolf Blitzer disappointedly called a conversation during the California debate, I saw TWO presidents promising that, at the end of the day, we would not forget our children.
I saw that, whether Obama wins or Hillary wins, the kids will finally have a voice. There’s a part of me that says that if Hillary wins, the kids will have a larger voice, but the other part of me says that if Obama wins the poor will be heard.
What a wonderful choice.
Thank you to both of you, Hillary, and Obama, for making us think a bit.
I am just assuming that things will work out no matter which of you gets elected.
The ultimate winners, I have decided after watching these two debate, is, our children.
Image credit: http://tinyurl.com/2mc2mf
