Thursday, January 24, 2008

Let's Look at Hillary Clinton's record


First I refer you to the earlier post about how Hillary, as First Lady, took what should have been a Republican scandal and singlehandedly turned it into a Clinton scandal--Travelgate.

Hillary OFTEN mentions her mentor at the Children's Defense Fund--the legendary Marian Wright Edelman.

So let's look at what Marian Wright Edelman thinks of Hillary Clinton's alleged "record." Democracy Now reports:

AMY GOODMAN: Marian Wright Edelman, we just heard Hillary Rodham Clinton. She used to be the head of the board of the Children’s Defense Fund, of the organization that you founded. But you were extremely critical of the Clintons. I mean, when President Clinton signed off on the, well, so-called welfare reform bill, you said, “His signature on this pernicious bill makes a mockery of his pledge not to hurt children.” So what are your hopes right now for these Democrats? And what are your thoughts about Hillary Rodham Clinton?

MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN: Well, you know, Hillary Clinton is an old friend, but they are not friends in politics. We have to build a constituency, and you don’t—and we profoundly disagreed with the forms of the welfare reform bill, and we said so. We were for welfare reform, I am for welfare reform, but we need good jobs, we need adequate work incentives, we need minimum wage to be decent wage and livable wage, we need health care, we need transportation, we need to invest preventively in all of our children to prevent them ever having to be on welfare.

And yet, you know, many years after that, when many people are pronouncing welfare reform a great success, you know, we’ve got growing child poverty, we have more children in poverty and in extreme poverty over the last six years than we had earlier in the year. When an economy is down, and the real test of welfare reform is what happens to the poor when the economy is not booming. Well, the poor are suffering, the gap between rich and poor widening. We have what I consider one of—a growing national catastrophe of what we call the cradle-to-prison pipeline. A black boy today has a one-in-three chance of going to prison in his lifetime, a black girl a one-in-seventeen chance. A Latino boy who’s born in 2001 has a one-in-six chance of going to prison. We are seeing more and more children go into our child welfare systems, go dropping out of school, going into juvenile justice detention facilities. Many children are sitting up—15,000, according to a recent congressional GAO study—are sitting up in juvenile institutions solely because their parents could not get mental health and health care in their community. This is an abomination.

The woman Hillary Clinton regularly mentions as her mentor strongly criticizes Hillary's alleged record. I personally would love to see a humane, progressive woman in the White House....but Hillary Clinton is NOT that woman. Hillary likes to compare herself to Margaret Thatcher, who was often jokingly referred to as a "man in drag" because of her policies.

Hillary will probably love the fact that Mosquito Blog is criticizing her...it will maker her appear more centrist.

I can personally understand the symbolic importance and progressive act it would be to elect our first woman president. That would be joyful indeed. But not if our first woman president is not progressive.

Does one's gender make one immune from betraying helpless children and the poor? The safety net in this country was ripped apart under the Clinton's and we have more children in poverty today because of their version of welfare reform.

Taking money from the poor to "give it" to the rich corporations is not beneficial to our country.

H/T to Buzzflash for the inspiration.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hear your points and they are well worded and easy to understand. There are two VERY big issues that REALLY scare me and that is the terrible state of the economy and the war in Iraq. I believe that Hillary Clinton can correct both situations with her abilities and experience. Our poor economic status is threatening to throw us into a global recession. Hillary is the best qualified to solve those two problems. I do, however, feel strongly that Bill Clinton had got to stop being her protector, always being on the defensive. She is a big girl and can and should take care of herself. Barack Obama is one of the very positive elements for the future. However, he has so little experience that I worry about his ability to deal with our biggest problems. Not enough experience yet. But the future holds an Obama Presidency. It should not be now, though because he needs more seasoning. Was that not part of what happened to Jimmy Carter?

Unknown said...

Let us not forget that Marian Wright Edelman's husband, Peter Edelman, resigned from his HHS post in the Clinton administration in protest of Bill Clinton's signed welfare reform legislation.

Did Hillary Clinton go along with her husband's deal-making with Newt Gingrich to "end welfare as we know it"?

Anonymous said...

We must also consider why Hillary will not release her White house records until after the election. This alone raises a red flag for me as well as the sharp divide the Clintons have carved into the Democratic party. I believe a divisive candidate would pose the most danger and do the most damage to our country. I believe Bush Clinton Bush politics should end.

Mosquito said...

The Clinton record in the White HOuse...THEY PROMISED NATIONAL HEALTH CARE...and Hillary was given the job. What did she do...spent evenings in the White House kitchen with an HMO executive...talk about selling us out to corporations.

So what did we get instead...
NAFTA....Sorry but Hillary's "experience" has already shown me that she represents multinational corporations and NOT the people of America.

Buzz...Buzz...

Anonymous said...

Hillary Clinton pushed us into a stupid war, and has not accomplished anything while a senator. She claims Bill Clinton's record, when it suits her, and doesn't when it does not. She also has a failed healthcare proposal in her resume. What is it this biyatch has supposedly done? I'm in her district, and she seems to spend way too much time trying to get republicans to like her. I despise her, and would never vote for a Clinton again. NAFTA? Yeah, that's her experience too, I guess.

I also would love to get her take on how integral bully bill will be, if she ever took office. That would be a good laugh-- on this country.

bdew@repairman.com said...

Hillary credited her own work with the Children's Defense Fund again today. As for worries about the economy, what makes people think that HRC would be more competent than Obama - there was an interesting - and grudgingly complimentary - column by George Will on Obama's economic advisor Austan Goolsbee. The economic boom during the Clinton I administration was a coincidence: the world wide web was implemented in 1990, kicking off the massive spending boom that accompanied its popularization. There is NO way that Hillary can duplicate this.

Anonymous said...

Obama has often made the point that he would not be a perfect President, nor that he could do alone what needs to be done in government, and relies upon the public to give that "push" to him in the Presidency.

It isn't conjecture to recogize that whether Obama or Hillary is in the Presidency, the pressure of the people works for either so that America can get what it wants. If that pressure will work for him, it will work equally well for Hillay, or for McCain, for that matter.

The idea that Hillary past policies need emulate future policies is ridiculous, since the Presidency is a far different place than the Congress - by design.

Any President going into the Oval Office in 2008 will face different issues than those in the 1990's, merely because of Bush policies and because it will be 9 years later than the end of the former Clinton administration, and 17 years since its first beginnings.

Comparing the two is like apples and oranges.

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