[theDentist]

This reminded me of something: Every time is see the names Clinton, Kerry, and Kennedy together, I think of the theme song of "The 3 Stooges". I know Teddy wasn't in the topic here, but the song played anyhow.

[repub_phdstudent]

The only votes they're concerned weren't counted are their own--I was denied my right to vote and I'm a Bush supporter. It works both ways--I believe the Northeast was rigged in their direction to a large extent, and hence my vote was not allowed to be cast.

[KJC1]

Teresa and Hillary are right, there was voter intimidation. I saw it first hand in Florida while volunteering.

The only part they have wrong is that it was Kerry thugs intimidating Bush supporters and voters. I can't count how many times I was told to get lost, and voters who approached me and other BC04 volunteers got vulgar tongue lashings from the Kerrorists. They tried to block our signs and stepped on our stuff. A couple of Kerrorists tried to bait us into physical fights too. Yes, a very welcoming environment for Bush voters, indeed.

[gridlock]

The Donks want each voter to get a print-out of votes. This will make it much easier to run vote-buying schemes, because the voter can redeem the correctly filled out receipt for cash.

A voter reciept can serve no useful function for the purposes of a recount, because it would be patently impossible to retrieve them all, and there is no chain-of-custody over the reciepts, making any retrieved useless and suspect.

This is a bad idea, that needs to be put down, early and often.

[OESY]

Friday April 15 2005

HILLARY CLINTON: A ROLE MODEL FOR FULL DISCLOSURE?

In yesterday's commentary chronicling the tempest surrounding Tom DeLay, I clipped a quote from an aide to Speaker Hastert that appeared in the Chicago Tribune. What caught my attention most, however, was something reporter Jill Zuckman wrote in the paragraph that followed. Here's the whole thing:

But a senior aide to Hastert said DeLay may need to make some public explanations about the charges since the House ethics committee has been unable to organize itself with Democrats protesting Republican-instituted rule changes.

"I'm not sure why he doesn't lay it out, regardless of whether the ethics committee ever meets or not," said the Hastert official, who spoke on condition of not being identified.

"Take whatever there is and say, `Here it is,'" the official said. "You have to at one point say, `Here I am, here it is, what's the question.'"

That strategy recalled the approach taken by former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 1990s when she was plagued by questions about unusual profits made from cattle futures. Hastert's adviser, however, rejected the comparison. (emphasis added)

Hillary Clinton randomly cited as a model for full disclosure? This is bizarre. Since Zuckman doesn't attribute it to anyone else, we have to assume she's the one who drew the comparison. More bizarre is that even after Hastert's aide rejected the idea, Zuckman wrote it into the piece anyway.

So what about it: did Hillary lay out all the facts when the cattle future story hit the fan? That's not how I recall it. This NR piece from February 1995 seems to confirm Mrs. Clinton was less than forthcoming:

Has there been any effort to suppress investigation of the transaction? Yes. Mrs. Clinton was adamantly opposed to the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into her and her husband's financial dealings, including her own trading activities, during the late 1970s and 1980s. She attempted to deflect attention from the matter by explaining away her newfound wealth as a gift from her parents, until the Clintons' 1978 and 1979 tax returns were made public and the actual source of her windfall profit was revealed.

Furthermore, despite our repeated and friendly requests to both the First Lady's and the White House's press representatives, none of our questions concerning the elementary details of Mrs. Clinton's trades and the availability of original documentation has been answered.

So what would possess Zuckman to recall Hillary Clinton as a role model of "full-disclosure"? More to the point: how does this little nugget of historical revisionism in any way qualify to be part of a "straight" news story on Tom DeLay?
-- T. Bevan 8:45 am

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