Hillary says Dems are 'wasting time'

Regis Philbin · Jul 16th, 2006, 10:06 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/16/us...in&oref=slogin

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July 16, 2006

Clinton, in Arkansas, Says Democrats Are 'Wasting Time'

By ANNE E. KORNBLUT

ROGERS, Ark., July 15 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, returning to her red-state ties, chastised Democrats Saturday for taking on issues that arouse conservatives and turn out Republican voters rather than finding consensus on mainstream subjects.

Without mentioning specific subjects like gay marriage, Mrs. Clinton said: “We do things that are controversial. We do things that try to inflame their base.”

“We are wasting time,” the senator told a group of Democratic women here, on part of a two-day swing through a state that could provide an alternate hub to New York if she starts a national political campaign.

On recent weekends, Mrs. Clinton has been traveling the country and raising money at an extraordinary pace. But the trip to Arkansas this weekend had a more sentimental feel, reuniting Mrs. Clinton with her former political allies and giving her a platform to broadcast her more centrist background.

After speaking to the Arkansas Federation of Democratic Women, Mrs. Clinton was scheduled to visit the first home in Fayetteville that her husband bought for her, and where they were married.

But she made the trip solo: Former President Bill Clinton has been in Africa, visiting projects run by the Clinton Foundation. Mrs. Clinton said her husband had called her to report that he had learned on his trip that the American ambassador to Malawi was from Arkansas, part of what she jokingly referred to as the “Arkansas diaspora.”

Arkansas supported Mr. Clinton, its former governor, when he ran for president in 1992 and 1996, but went for George W. Bush in 2000. Mr. Bush made the northwest Arkansas region one of his final stops before the election that year, confident that he could solidify Southern gains.

**Richard Tafoya** · Jul 16th, 2006, 10:44 PM

Reporting on the reporting, it looks like Kornblut got it wrong.
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_07_1...06675335323628

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Clinton obviously meant no such thing. The "we" was Congress, as led by Republicans, not Democrats. From the transcript:

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Clinton: You have to ask yourself, we have all these problems, and we have solutions sitting out there, why can't we move in the right direction? And it really comes down to a difference in values and philosophy. You know the nine women Democratic Senators, anybody see us on Larry King's show? We put out what we call our Checklist for Change. I don't know about you, but I am a list maker. I guess it's like a part of the DNA for women. I make lists about lists. And so we were talking one day and saying, you know, we as individuals, we have all of this legislation, we can't get it on the floor of the Senate. We can't get a vote on it because the Republican majority wants to vote on other things. So we pulled all our best ideas together. Wouldn't this be a good agenda for America: safeguard America's pensions; good jobs for Americans; make college affordable for all; protect America and our military families; prepare for future disasters; make America energy independent; make small business and healthcare affordable, invest in life saving science; and protect our air, land, and water. You know, Blanche Lincoln has a bill to make healthcare affordable for small business, I have a bill I was talking to you about with respect to energy independence, we have legislation sitting in the Senate to address these problems. But with the Republican majority, that's not their priority. So we do other things, we do things that are controversial, we do things that try to inflame their base so that they can turn people out and vote for their candidates. I think we are wasting time, we are wasting lives, we need to get back to making America work again, in a bipartisan, nonpartisan way."

Kornblut makes it even worse by implying that Democrats are the ones bringing up gay marriage, when it's the Republicans who are doing so.

**pinky** · Jul 17th, 2006, 10:12 AM

That liberal NYTimes! They're so biased against the Republicans!

Jul 17th, 2006, 10:12 AM	#3
pinky Spoiler of All Fun Moderator Join Date: Aug 1999 Location: It's JERSEY, not Joisey Posts: 22,190	That liberal NYTimes! They're so biased against the Republicans!