Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

national news, political news

O'Malley is right; pass him the 'crown'

Martin O’Malley wants to be president of the United States.

Look for the former Maryland governor to announce his candidacy soon for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. The man who once supported Hillary Clinton’s desire to be president now says the presidency isn’t some “crown” that should be passed between two families.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/29/martin-omalley-presidency_n_6964338.html

He refers, of course, to the Clintons and the Bushes.

Actually, O’Malley is getting way ahead of himself.

It seems likely that Clinton will run for president again; Jeb Bush is likely to seek the GOP nomination.

Are either of them locks for their parties’ nomination? Hardly.

Clinton once was a lock. She’s still the strongest Democrat out there, but her grip on the nomination has slipped bit since the email controversy broke a few weeks ago.

Bush hardly is a cinch for the GOP nomination. He’s got his own baggage, chief among it the memory of his brother’s recent presidency.

The burden now falls on folks such as O’Malley to prove why they deserve to be seen and heard. It’s not just about candidates with recognizable names.

As this “crown” business relates to the Clintons, it’s good to remember that Bill Clinton wasn’t exactly from a filthy rich family when he ran for president in 1992. He came from fairly humble beginnings, as did his wife.

Still, I’m willing to listen to candidates such as O’Malley make their case, as I am willing to listen to the thundering herd of Republicans getting ready to run for the White House.

Bring it on!

 

national news, political news

Morris 'thinks' a lot of things

Dick Morris has been “thinking” a lot lately.

He thinks Barack Obama wants Elizabeth Warren, not Hillary Clinton, to succeed him in the White House.

He thinks the White House leaked the Clinton email story to the press to torpedo the former secretary of state’s presidential ambitions.

He thinks the email controversy will linger the way the Watergate scandal did in 1973-74.

Obama wants Warren over Clinton, Dick Morris says

How does The Hill columnist, former Bill Clinton pollster and one-time Fox News contributor know all of this? Hard to say. He just thinks it.

This kind of peanut-gallery analysis slays me.

Dick Morris hardly is an insider in the Obama White House. He’s become a fierce critic of the president and, for that matter, of Hillary Clinton. Does he have some inside knowledge? He might be moonlighting these days as a mind reader, for all I know.

Warren says she will not run for president. The president isn’t likely to endorse a party nominee prior to the convention next year. As for the email matter, the only reason is will remain in the public eye is because critics, such as Morris, will ensure that people like me keep commenting on it.

How credible is Morris’s thought process on these political matters?

In the days prior to the 2012 presidential election, he thought Mitt Romney would win in a landslide.

It didn’t work out that way.

 

International news, national news, political news

Clinton gives Benghazi panel fresh ammo

What in the world is Trey Gowdy hoping to find in those mysterious emails filed by Hillary Rodham Clinton?

I think I know. He wants to find something that incriminates the former secretary of state in that infamous incident now known simply as “Benghazi.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/trey-gowdy-hillary-clinton-email-server-116268.html?hp=l3_3

“Benghazi” has become shorthand for the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Four Americans — including the U.S. ambassador to Libya — died in the attack. Congressional critics of Clinton have contended she covered up what she knew in advance of the terrorist attack. She’s denied any such thing and has rejected allegations that she didn’t do enough to protect the personnel who were attacked.

Those pesky emails, according to Gowdy, might shed light on the incident. Gowdy chairs the Select House Benghazi Committee, which until now had come up empty in its search for Clinton culpability in the attack.

Now that HRC has revealed that she used a personal email account instead of the State Department account while she served as secretary of state, Gowdy smells a rat — at least he thinks he smells a rat.

Gowdy is demanding that Clinton’s lawyer turn over her email server to an independent third party to examine its contents.

I remain quite dubious that Congress is going to find anything that incriminates Clinton. Having said that, it’s probably a good idea for Clinton’s lawyer to do as Chairman Gowdy is asking/demanding/pleading.

Perhaps then we can put “Benghazi” to bed — for keeps.

 

national news, political news

And what if Hillary doesn't run?

This notion of a congressional investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of personal email accounts while she was secretary of state is beginning to sound laughable.

Some of us out here will break out into hysterical howls if Clinton does the improbable — and doesn’t run for president of the United States next year.

Why the guffaws?

Congress will drop the story like a bad habit.

House Speaker John Boehner is considering a congressional probe. House Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy is going to peek into whether Clinton’s personal account email use somehow is related to the Benghazi mess of September 2012, the fire fight that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

This has all the apparent earmarks of a political hatchet job.

Clinton is likely to run for president. Her Republican critics in Congress and elsewhere don’t want her in the White House. She’d be a formidable candidate and as it stands right at this moment she remains a strong favorite to defeat almost any GOP challenger.

But what if she doesn’t run? What if she decides, “You know, I just don’t think I have the stomach for this. I’ve taken enough of a battering over this Benghazi thing, during my time in the U.S. Senate and, oh yeah, when I was first lady and trying to push through my husband’s health care overhaul — which went nowhere.”

My hunch is that all these probes, these searches for the truth, these quests to find an email scandal where none exists will disappear.

The opposition will pat itself on the back, say “so long” to Hillary Clinton and go about looking for demons behind other closet doors.

 

 

national news, political news

Al Gore for president?

Ezra Klein is a bright young man. He’s a frequent TV news talk show guest and once contributed essays to the Washington Post.

He now writes for Vox — and he’s put forward a patently absurd, but still interesting idea: Al Gore should run for president of the United States.

Yeah, that Al Gore. The former two-term vice president who collected more popular votes than Texas Gov. George W. Bush in 2000, only to lose the presidency when the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to stop counting the ballots in Florida, which went to Bush and gave him the presidency.

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/16/8220537/al-gore-president-2016

What commends Gore to make the race? According to Klein, he has more unique ideas on how to govern than any of the other so-called alternatives to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Klein agrees with Gore that climate change is an international concern. He thinks Gore is credible on the issue and can make the case eloquently using the White House as his bully pulpit.

Does he have drawbacks? Oh sure.

Klein writes: “The problem with a Gore candidacy, to be blunt, is Gore. He can be a wooden candidate. His relationship with the press is challenging, to say the least. He is an aging politician in a country that loves new faces. His finances are complicated, and he made an insane sum of money by selling his cable network to Al Jazeera. His divorce from Tipper Gore means his personal life isn’t the storybook it once was. He is loathed by conservatives, who find his environmentalism to be rank hypocrisy from a jet-setting, Davos-attending mansion dweller — as politically polarized as concern over climate change already is, Gore could polarize it yet further.”

Klein’s essay attached to this blog post is worth your time.

I’m hoping Al Gore reads it and gives the notion Klein puts forth some thought.

 

national news, political news

Here we go: Congress to probe email tempest

It was a matter of time — and it took no time at all — before Congress would decide to conduct hearings into Hillary Clinton’s use of personal email accounts while she served as secretary of state.

Here’s how I believe the inquiries break down: What will they learn? What do they hope to learn?

Boehner reportedly set to announce Clinton email probe

At issue is Clinton’s use of a private account rather than using a State Department email account to communicate with, oh, this or that foreign minister or U.S. government staffers relating to official government activity.

The hearings might enable members of Congress to learn what she said and when she said it, and to whom. The public also might learn whether Clinton divulged national security secrets while using the private account — which is the one thing she said categorically the other day she didn’t do.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said — by golly — he doesn’t want to subpoena Clinton. Sure thing, Mr. Chairman. “I’d rather not have to subpoena her, but if she’s fully cooperative there wouldn’t be a need,” Chaffetz told The Wall Street Journal. “Are we prepared to do so if necessary? I suppose so. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

Now, what does the Republican-led Congress hope to learn? Only God knows. I’m guessing the leadership hopes to learn something — anything — that is going to damage Clinton’s chances of getting elected president of the United States next year.

That’s how it goes in the world of politics. Something goes amiss and Congress jumps all over it.

If the hearings commence, and I am quite certain they will, be sure to tune in to all the speeches lawmakers will make prior to asking whatever questions they intend to ask. This is a bipartisan tendency. Indeed, as Republicans pontificate over their outrage at what they suspect happened, you’ll hear Democrats blather on about how they are utterly certain this is all a witch hunt.

Get ready for it. The fun is just beginning.

 

national news, political news

In a word, the Hillary email story is about 'trust'

You can sum up the difficulty that is building around Hillary Rodham Clinton’s probable presidential campaign in a single five-letter word: trust.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/hillary-clinton-press-conference-115989.html?hp=b3_r1#.VQaz71J0yt8

Can she be trusted to tell us the truth all the time?

The Politico story attached here talks about the history she and her husband, the former 42nd president, Bill Clinton, had in using the English language to wiggle their way out of difficulty.

President Clinton sought to tell Americans that he “did not have sexual relations” with the young White House intern. It turned out that likely did have what almost anyone describe as a sexual relationship with her — but not in the way he defined it.

Does anyone recall how the president defined the word “is”?

Hillary Clinton’s email mess, on its face, likely isn’t a huge story. It’s becoming one, though, because of her own seemingly slippery use of language to define what she did and when she did it.

The Politico essay refers to her talking about “not saving” email communications. What happened to the word “delete”? Did she delete the messages, send them to the trash bin on purpose?

It’s that kind of imprecise language that seems to be getting the former secretary of state/U.S. senator/first lady into a bit of a jam as she ramps up her 2016 presidential campaign.

Hillary Clinton once seemed like the inevitable 45th president of the United States. She remains the prohibitive favorite to become the Democrats’ next nominee for the office.

That aura of White House inevitability, however, suddenly is needs some major repair.

Straight talk would help build some much-needed trust.

 

national news, political news

No love for Hillary from White House

The late state Sen. Teel Bivins, R-Amarillo, once told me that the Legislature’s decennial redistricting effort gave Republican lawmakers a chance to show how they “eat their young.”

It’s a cutthroat business, carving up a state into equally sized legislative and congressional districts. It has to be done once the census is taking every decade.

Well, it’s good to point out that Republicans aren’t the only ones who “eat their young.” Democrats do it, too.

http://nypost.com/2015/03/14/obama-adviser-behind-leak-of-hillary-clintons-e-mail-scandal/

A New York Post columnist reports that sources tell him that White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett leaked to the press Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email account while she served as secretary of state.

Where’s the love from the White House? Not with Jarrett, apparently. It remains to be seen if the Post article can be verified by other, independent sources. A part of me isn’t surprised by what the columnist is reporting.

Remember ol’ Willie Horton? He was the murderer whose prison furlough was approved by then-Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, who was his party’s presidential nominee in 1988. Then-Vice President George Bush, the Republican presidential nominee, hammered Dukakis mercilessly over that furlough, as Horton went out and killed someone during the time he was set free.

Do you remember who introduced that issue into the 1988 political campaign? It was a young U.S. senator from Tennessee, Democrat Albert Gore Jr., who was seeking his party’s nomination along with Dukakis. Gore ratted out Dukakis in a Democrat vs. Democrat game of insults.

I’m certain my friend Teel Bivins would enjoy watching this latest bit of political cannibalism.

 

 

media news, national news

HRC turns over 55,000 emails; Colin Powell, none

A friend distributed this tweet, from Joe Conason, a liberal columnist who wonders about the Hillary Clinton email flap.

“If Beltway press isn’t satisfied that @HillaryClinton turned over 55K emails, why don’t they care that Colin Powell turned over ZERO?”

I think I know the answer.

Colin Powell isn’t considering a run for the presidency in 2016; Hillary Clinton is likely to declare her White House candidacy in a month, maybe two.

That’s the reason for the interest.

Colin Powell served as secretary of state during the first term of the George W. Bush administration. He used a personal email account, just as Clinton did. In no way does that justify anything, other than to suggest that the media have this way of applying double standards whenever and wherever possible — and against whomever they feel like doing so.

I suppose if Powell, a retired Army general as well, were to decide to run for president, then he’d become fair game, too.

national news, political news

HRC's email tempest is going to build

Oh, how I was hoping Hillary Rodham Clinton would quell the unrest over her use of private email accounts while she was secretary of state.

Silly me. I knew it likely wouldn’t, but I was hanging on to a glimmer of hope.

Her press conference today likely guaranteed this tempest is going to follow her onto the 2016 presidential campaign trail, assuming that she makes the race — which everyone in the know seems to think will happen.

Clinton fails to calm email storm

She said something today about deleting tens of thousands of private emails from her server at home. She said she never breached national security with private communications. Clinton said she used the private account for “convenience” sake and said if she could do it over, she would have used the State Department account to communicate about State Department matters.

Her critics on the right — led by Fox News and other conservative mainstream media — will ensure that this matter keeps bubbling up.

Now, though, her critics on the left are likely to start beating the bushes for an alternative candidate to seek the Democratic presidential nomination next year. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts says she won’t seek the presidency.

Hmmm. Can she be talked into running? I’m betting some operatives are going to try.

This email matter hasn’t risen to the level of “scandal,” as some on the right have called it. But it does raise some questions — in my mind, at least — about whether Clinton kept public information away from public scrutiny.

This mess is far from being cleaned up.