Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

national news, political news

Trump channels late Texas congressman … more or less

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Donald Trump said recently that he intends to respond to negative attacks and added — somewhat incredulously, in my view — that he’s not one to initiate a negative campaign.

Interesting, yes? Well, I think so.

He’s been pretty darn negative ever since he announced his Republican presidential candidacy.

He took it to a new level when he said that likely Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton’s husband, Bill Clinton, has demonstrated a worse record regarding women that Trump has.

Hillary Clinton had accused Trump of being hyper-sexist in his outlook toward women. So, Trump decided to bring up President Clinton’s relationship with a young White House intern.  He vows to make an example of the former president.

Well, my thoughts turned to a former Texas congressman I used to know quite well. The late Democratic U.S. Rep. Charles Wilson used to say much the same thing about negative campaigning. He once told me he’d never start a negative campaign, but would be always be prepared to respond if an opponent decided to get nasty.

A candidate once did get quite nasty during the 1992 campaign, criticizing Wilson’s lifestyle — including his self-acknowledged affection for attractive women. She aired TV ads while running against Wilson for the East Texas congressional district he’d represented since 1973. The ads were highly critical of Wilson’s “Good Time Charlie” reputation.

What happened next remains a bit of a mystery. An audiotape showed up at the newspaper where I worked at the time; it contained a heated — and profanity-laced — conversation between the Republican challenger and her married campaign treasurer. The two of them discussed their own extramarital affair, with the candidate demanding that her lover leave his wife for her.

I suppose I should mention that Wilson’s opponent had portrayed herself as a deeply religious candidate who ran on what used to be called “family values.”

Wilson, who at the time served on the House Select Intelligence Committee, denied having anything to do with the tape. I couldn’t prove otherwise.

The difference between that example and the one that Trump is threatening to use is that the candidate who challenged Wilson was an active politician, while the former president that Trump threatens to drag into the campaign hasn’t been a full-time politician since his presidency ended in January 2001.

Somehow, I believe Charlie Wilson would laugh at what Trump is pledging to do to a potential political rival.

political news

Time to get back into the game

donald

That was a nice break from the presidential political campaign.

It’s now over.

High Plains Blogger has been pretty quiet for the past few weeks on the goings-on related to the Democratic and Republican campaigns for the White House. The intent was to stay quiet during the Christmas holiday. I had given thought to maintaining the moratorium through New Years Day. I admit it: I can’t do it.

So, I’ll be getting back in the game.

* * *

The Iowa caucuses are coming up, followed quickly by the New Hampshire primary.

Donald J. Trump continues to lead the GOP pack, although for the life of me I remain baffled to the max as to what’s going on with Republican voters. I keep hearing and reading things about how Trump has changed the rules of the campaign. How he’s rewriting the playbook.

The more offensive he is toward his primary foes, the better it goes for the guy. I thought he was toast at the very beginning when he denigrated Sen. John McCain’s heroic service during the Vietnam War. Good grief, the list of insults has grown beyond my ability to remember them all.

But … by golly he remains at the top of the heap.

The Democrats? It’s still Hillary Clinton’s contest to lose (although I’ve never quite understood that phrase; I’ll just use it anyway, because it’s what pundits keep saying).

I’m going to be watching and waiting for Trump to say the one thing that sends his campaign into the crapper. It might not be a single utterance, though, that dooms his weird campaign. It might be an accumulation of things that will dawn on GOP primary voters when they finally get the chance to cast actual ballots.

They’ll need to ask: Is this the guy we really and truly want to nominate to become the 45th president of the United States of America?

If it’s going to be Trump, well, as Hillary Clinton herself as said: Fasten your seatbelts.

 

 

State news

Starr speaks sanely about campus-carry law

campus carry

There once was a time when I wasn’t much of a fan of Kenneth Starr.

That was when he served as a special counsel who was given the task of investigating a real estate matter involving Bill and Hillary Clinton. Then he came upon another matter, the relationship that President Clinton had with a young White House intern.

He’s gone on, though, to become president and chancellor of Baylor University. And this week he told the Texas Tribune that there’s almost no chance that Baylor is going to allow licensed gun owners to pack heat on the Waco campus. What’s more, Starr also opposes the campus carry law.

Who knew that Kenneth Starr had such a reasonable streak?

Baylor joins other private universities in Texas that likely will opt out of the concealed carry law. Starr’s take? He told the Tribune: “My own view is that it is a very unwise public policy, with all due respect to those who feel strongly (and) very, very rooted in constitutional values as they see them. We’re here as seats of learning, and I do not think this is helpful.”

The bill, enacted by the 2015 Legislature, seeks to bring more guns into places where they previously had been banned. I saw nothing wrong with banning firearms on college and university campuses.

I’m glad to be on the same page as Kenneth Starr. For the life of me I never thought I’d see it happen.

 

national news, political news, Sports news

Ratings tank for Democratic debate … who knew?

debate stage

Why is anyone surprised that the TV ratings for the Democratic Party presidential debate headed for the tank?

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley duked it out in Des Moines, Iowa. CBS carried it and by many accounts, the big winner of the event was John Dickerson, host of “Face the Nation” and the moderator of the debate.

I’ll offer a couple of theories on the ratings tumble.

First, the identity of the eventual Democratic nominee is pretty well known. It’s likely to be Clinton, the former first lady/U.S. senator/secretary of state. She stumbled a couple of times in Des Moines, but she did very little to harm her status as the prohibitive favorite to face whomever the Republicans nominate next summer.

Second, and this is probably the more telling reason, the debate was up against some late-night college football games.

I hate to acknowledge this, but a football game between two competitive teams is far more exciting than watching three politicians try to out-insult each other.

(A point of personal privilege here: I was in and out of the debate, tuning in finally to the final quarter of the Oregon-Stanford game that Fox was broadcasting. Oh yeah: the Ducks won it with a last-second defensive play in their own end zone. Go Ducks!)

Sure, the debate shed some light on important policy positions.

But there were no surprises. There was even less drama.

Hey, if it had been Republicans debating opposite those football games — even with their carnival atmosphere — I’m pretty sure football would have won those ratings, too.

 

 

 

 

International news, national news, political news

Does it matter what we call the enemy?

islam-at-war

Hillary Rodham Clinton did not use the words “radical Islam” during the Democratic presidential debate Saturday night to define the enemy with whom the civilized world is at war.

Does it matter? Is it vitally important for Clinton — or any leading politician — to use those words when describing terrorist organizations?

Her Republican opponents say it is. The leading Democratic presidential candidate, though, answered with a statement of her own, invoking the words — of all people — of former Republican President George W. Bush.

We are not at war with Islam, President Bush said in September 2001 after the 9/11 attacks. The fight, he said, was against extremists, those who have perverted what he called a religion of “peace.”

Clinton and President Obama have gone to great lengths to avoid using the words “radical Islam,” giving their foes plenty of ammo to use against them.

Personally, I think the words “radical Islam” are quite appropriate to describe our foes.

But does it really matter more what we say about them more than what we do to fight them?

No.

This debate is getting bogged down in a game of semantics. From my perch out here in Flyover Country it appears to be that our national leadership knows the name of the enemy — and is taking the fight to them.

 

 

national news, political news

Trump succeeds with idiotic idea

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Donald Trump’s signature issue in his quest to become president of the United States?

I guess it’s immigration.

What is his idea? Round up all 11 million — maybe it’s more — individuals who are here illegally, send them back to their native country. But, he says, do it “humanely.”

OK. How do we do that?

Well, he wants to hire about 25,000 additional federal employees — let’s call ’em immigrant wranglers. He’d deploy them across the country to hunt down those who are here without proper documentation. They’d take the immigrants into custody, I reckon, process them and then send them back to their country of origin.

Someone has to start taking Trump seriously to task for continuing to promote an idea that is looking more and more like utter insanity.

Has anyone figured out the cost of an operation that Trump is proposing? And what in the world does this mean to those who want a smaller federal workforce? Trump is proposing growing the federal payroll by at least 25,000 individuals. And does he consider this to be a one-time operation, that them immigrant wranglers will round up the undocumented immigrants one time, call it good and then move on to other jobs?

Not all GOP candidates have endorsed Trump’s nuttiness. “We all know you can’t pick them up and ship them … back across the border,” Ohio Gov. John Kasich said. “It’s a silly argument. It is not an adult argument. It makes no sense.”

Oh, I almost forgot. Trump is going to build a “beautiful wall” stretching from the mouth of the Rio Grande River in South Texas all the way to the Pacific Ocean, just south of San Diego, Calif. That’ll keep the illegal immigrants out. Job finished.

Hillary Rodham Clinton said this about the Trump Plan: “The idea of tracking down and deporting 11 million people is absurd, inhumane, and un-American. No, Trump.”

Let’s add “insane” and “idiotic.”

This is the leading Republican presidential candidate’s formula for “making America great again”?

media news, national news, political news

‘Liberal media’ take no prisoners

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media

Ben Carson has counterattacked the “liberal media” for what he calls a “witch hunt.”

Questions about his past have become all the rage. CNN keeps poking around in the hunt for corroboration that he once stabbed someone in a fit of anger. The network can’t find anyone to back it up. Now we hear that Dr. Carson, um, didn’t exactly get offered a West Point scholarship in the manner he said he did.

The media want to know the truth.

The counterattack points to what the doctor/Republican presidential candidate said is a double standard as it regards Democrats running for president. The media don’t look quite as intently at them as they do Republicans, according to Dr. Carson.

Hold on, doc.

Barack Obama faced intense scrutiny over:

  • His relationship with a fiery Church of Christ pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
  • His friendship with anti-Vietnam War activist William Ayers.
  • His place of birth and whether he was constitutionally qualified to run for president of the United States.
  • His academic records at Harvard, which Carson brought up again this week.

And, oh yes, Hillary Clinton, the current Democratic frontrunner has, throughout her public career, faced down matters involving:

  • Allegations that she covered up information about Benghazi.
  • Her involvement with her husband, the 42nd president, in the Whitewater real estate matter.
  • The death of her good friend, Vince Foster, who some in the media have suggested was murdered.

So … let’s take a breath, shall we?

I also should mention the names of other prominent Democratic pols who’ve wilted under the media glare.

Do the names Gary Hart and John Edwards ring a bell? How about Anthony Weiner and Barney Frank?

Let’s get back to the story at hand. Did a leading candidate for president of the United States misrepresent whether he was offered a West Point scholarship?

Well … ?

 

entertainment news, national news, political news

Sen. Thompson made his mark early

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There will be tributes a-plenty in the next few days and weeks as politicians — and actors — remember one of their own: former U.S. senator and former TV and film actor Fred Dalton Thompson.

The Tennessee Republican was a larger-than-life guy who died today at his home after battling a recurrence of lymphoma.

He ran for president once. Served in the Senate. Acted in some pretty good films and had a good run as the district attorney in the hit TV show “Law and Order.”

I want to remember this man in another fashion.

R.I.P., Sen. Thompson

The first time I saw him was in 1973. It was on TV. I was a college student majoring in political science at Portland State University in Oregon and Thompson was serving as chief counsel for the Republican senators serving on the Select Senate Committee on Watergate.

Its chairman was the late Democrat Sam Ervin, the self-described “country lawyer” from North Carolina.

Thompson’s role in that committee was to provide legal advice for the Republicans on the committee. The panel was investigating the Watergate scandal that was beginning to metastasize and eventually would result in the resignation of President Nixon.

Fred Thompson had really bad hair, as I recall. But appearances aside, he was a tough interrogator, as was the Democrats’ chief counsel, Sam Dash.

My memory of Thompson was jogged a bit the other day by MSNBC commentator Lawrence O’Donnell who opined — after the daylong hearing of Hillary Clinton before the Select House Benghazi Committee — that senators and House members shouldn’t be allowed to question witnesses. O’Donnell cited the work that Thompson and Dash did in pursuing the truth behind the Watergate scandal.

Leave the questioning of these witnesses to the pros, O’Donnell said. The Benghazi committee congressmen and women, he said, made spectacles of themselves.

Thompson, indeed, was a tough lawyer. My memory of him at the time was that he questioned anti-Nixon witnesses quite hard and didn’t let up very much on those who supported the embattled president.

He did his job well.

That is what I remember today as the nation marks Sen. Thompson’s passing.

May he rest in peace.

 

national news, political news

Clinton was up, down, now she’s way up

Trey_Gowdy-1

Hillary Clinton’s roller-coaster ride to the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination has taken an important turn.

The once-invincible Democratic front runner got scuffed up, battered and a bit bruised over all the chatter leading up to the House Benghazi committee hearing this week.

Then came some good news for the Clinton camp: Vice President Joe Biden decided he wouldn’t run for president in 2016; then the Republican-led Benghazi panel came apart at the seams as it sought to tar and feather the former secretary of state over her role in the tragic events that transpired at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

It’s pretty accurate to say that the Benghazi panelists didn’t land a single telling punch on Clinton.

As I wrote in an earlier blog post, Clinton — to my eyes — looked like the only grownup in the congressional hearing room.

In the hour after the hearing adjourned, Clinton’s campaign set some kind of fundraising record. Money began pouring in.

Even pundits who tilt Republican, such as former GOP U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough, said the hearing was a bad day for the GOP and for Benghazi committee chairman Trey Gowdy.

I am thinking at this moment that Hillary Clinton is officially back on track to claiming the Democrats’ presidential nomination.

At this moment …

Tomorrow, of course, is another day.

 

International news, military news, national news

Hillary Clinton: the only grownup in the room

hillary clinton

I didn’t watch every single moment of the House Benghazi Select Committee hearing today.

And as I write this blog post, it’s finishing up.

I do, though, want to make one point: The only grownup in the room among the principals involved in this hearing was the former secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Democrats and Republicans on the panel went after each other like hyenas fighting over a carcass. Meanwhile, Clinton managed to stay above all that.

As for what I’ve heard among the questioners grilling Clinton, I need to say that I heard nothing new in either the questions or the answers given by the lone witness.

Which leads me to the source of the tension between committee members: the motive for the hearing in the first place.

Democrats allege that Republicans who control the House of Representatives have gone after Clinton over the Benghazi tragedy for a single purpose: to blow her presidential campaign out of the water. Indeed, many of the questions coming from the GOP side of the dais veered repeatedly into territory that’s been covered repeatedly during the several previous congressional hearings.

Democratic members, though, didn’t acquit themselves well, either, as they bitched repeatedly about their GOP colleagues’ conduct during this entire sorry episode.

“Benghazi” has become political shorthand for an incident that resulted on Sept. 11, 2012 in the deaths of four brave Americans during a firefight at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Clinton led the State Department at the time.

Three years after the fact and after countless hearings, testimony, investigation and posturing … Congress has found nothing.

The Benghazi panel’s conduct today shouldn’t make Congress proud.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s dignity, though, throughout this hearing demonstrated something quite different.

And commendable.