Tag Archives: ABC News

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HRC's second-most surprising comment …

Having already declared surprise that the Benghazi flap would encourage Hillary Clinton to run for president, I’ve found perhaps the second-most interesting thing she said in that TV interview that aired Monday night.

It’s what she didn’t say.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/208757-clinton-doesnt-deny-narcissistic-looney-tune-comments

ABC News’s Diane Sawyer asked Clinton about a comment she made about Monica Lewinsky — you remember, yes? — in which she was quoted as calling “that woman” a “narcissistic loony tune.” Clinton’s response? “I am not going to comment on what I said or didn’t say in the late 1990s,” she said.

There it is. She said it.

Frankly, I have to agree with that description … not that it excuses her husband’s behavior, and that’s all I’ll say about that.

Sawyer then noted that Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has said that the Lewinsky scandal that resulted in the impeachment of President Clinton is fair game if Hillary Clinton runs for president in two years.

“You know, he can talk about what he wants to talk about. And if he decides to run, he’ll be fair game too for everybody,” she said. I’m reminded a bit of what the late U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson, D-Lufkin, once said about an opponent who kept bringing up negative aspects of Wilson’s admittedly flamboyant lifestyle. “I have never initiated a negative campaign,” Wilson told me, “but if my opponent keeps saying those things, I’ll be prepared to respond.” Brother, did he ever.

Message to Sen. Paul? Be very careful if you intend to go there.

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Ingraham joins ABC … so what?

Media Matters is a left-wing journalism watchdog group that takes great delight in exposing Fox News Channel’s big lie that it is the “fair and balanced” cable news network.

I agree — usually — with Media Matters’s take on Fox.

However, I think the group if off base in attacking ABC News for hiring conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham as its newest “contributor.”

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/04/13/meet-abc-news-newest-contributor-laura-ingraham/198871

Why go after Media Matters on this one?

Well, I am one who likes to see news/commentary outlets offer wide-ranging points of view. Do I agree with Ingraham’s world view? No. However, she isn’t the first conservative voice to be heard on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday news talk show. Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol is a regular on the show, as was syndicated conservative columnist George Will before he left ABC to join the Fox News Channel’s Sunday talk show as a contributor.

ABC, as does NBC’s “Meet the Press,” quite often invites conservatives and liberals to sit at the same round table to discuss issues of the day. They debate. They even argue.

What is so wrong with that?

CNN, arguably the pioneer news network, does much the same thing on any of its myriad political talk shows. Newt Gingrich and Van Jones — a rightie and a leftie, respectively — are regulars on CNN’s revamped “Crossfire” program.

I don’t see why ABC is getting so worked up over Ingraham. Yes, she’s provocative and she occasionally crosses — what I consider, at least — the line of good taste and decency in making her points.

You’ve heard the old term about the “marketplace of ideas.” It’s broad, wide, deep and varied. Let all voices be heard. We’ll be the judges of who’s right or wrong.

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Health care rollout no ‘mission accomplished’

ABC News correspondent Jon Karl sought to pin White House spokesman Jay Carney down on whether the tinkering of the once-crashed health care website produced a “mission accomplished” moment.

Carney didn’t take the bait.

Nor should he.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/12/02/abcs_jon_karl_to_carney_is_it_mission_accomplished_for_obamacare_website.html

The reference, of course, is to the famous photo op of President George W. Bush landing aboard the aircraft carrier in 2003 after the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been captured. Then the president stood before the world — and in front of a banner hung across the conning tower of the carrier — that declared “Mission Accomplished.”

It turned out the mission was far from accomplished. Many more Americans would die in battle before the Iraq War came to an end. Anyone with half a memory of that event knows the folly of declaring victory too quickly.

I’m quite sure the current president, Barack Obama, is aware as well.

The Affordable Care Act rollout was a disaster for the White House. The computer program meant to handle all those applications for health insurance crashed and burned. The White House took it down. Health officials throughout the administration began feeling intense pressure. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius could have done an honorable thing by resigning, given that it all happened on her watch. She has stayed.

The healthcare.gov website has been updated, tweaked, nipped-and-tucked and is working a lot better than before. Is it perfect? Has the administration accomplished its mission? No on both counts.

But the administration is making strides, which is about as good as it can get when you take on such a huge enterprise as trying to fix a broken health care system.

The mission is not accomplished — at least not yet.