BaldGOP

A Blog for Bald Republicans, and anyone else!

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Hillary Care...Hillary Bonds - Enough Already

Hillary abandons 'baby bonds' plan
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's quick backtracking from an off-the-cuff "baby bonds" proposal demonstrates her campaign's ability to jump on damage control. It's been less than two weeks since the New York Democrat casually said, "I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time."

The campaign swiftly amended the remarks to say it wasn't a policy position, but just an "idea," even though members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) whom she was addressing seemed to like what they heard. As The Washington Times reported Tuesday, Republicans immediately ridiculed the idea, and some operatives said it was Mrs. Clinton's first mistake of the 2008 campaign.

Polls proved it was unpopular, so it was locked away and never mentioned again, baffling some of her Democratic rivals but illustrating a broader theme of the Clinton campaign — discipline and dominance. "I'm intrigued by the way it came out, almost everything that we have heard from Senator Clinton has been scripted or carefully thought out ahead of time," said pollster Scott Rasmussen, whose firm did a poll showing voters opposed baby bonds 2-to-1.

Brushing aside questions on the topic, her campaign this week pointed reporters instead to a Wall Street Journal blog post titled "Clinton Has a New Bus, but No 'Baby Bonds,' " and touted her proposal to create a "401(k) plan for all Americans." A spokesman yesterday, in a one-word e-mail, confirmed the idea is "off" the table for future policy. Asked to elaborate, he responded: "It was never a firm policy proposal." Voters probably don't care that Mrs. Clinton holds fewer press conferences and media availabilities than the other candidates, but on her latest swing through Iowa, the front-runner took few questions from her caucus-going audience.

At one stop Sunday, Mrs. Clinton had a terse back-and-forth with Democrat Randall Rolph, who questioned her recent vote on an Iran resolution because he was worried it was a precursor to war with Iran. Mrs. Clinton first suggested his question was something "that somebody obviously sent to you." According to published reports, after Mr. Rolph took offense, she apologized, noting she had been asked the same question in three other places. Since then, she did not take "any questions from average voters at her four other events Monday. Nor has she, with a few exceptions, since Labor Day," the New York Times reported this week. Any casual observer would notice that she holds fewer press availabilities than her rivals, and less still since she solidified her position in national polls as the front-runner.

Mrs. Clinton announces major news via her own campaign creation — HillaryHub.com, a Drudge Report imitation that helps manage her message. She takes her policy directly to voters in Web "chats" and detailed e-mails. The Clinton campaign even managed the unusual feat of scoring her major interviews on all five principal Sunday political talk shows on the same weekend, a coup made possible in part by the rarity of her television appearances putting each one at a premium for each network.

As for baby bonds, Mrs. Clinton was smart to scrap the idea once Republicans tagged her a big spender, Mr. Husson said. "Hillary is clearly good about political public relations," Mr. Husson said. "Rather than get wrapped up in a story that would have legs, they simply backed off of it."

A spokesman for former Sen. John Edwards, North Carolina Democrat, who trails Mrs. Clinton in the polls, joked that she was pressured "to throw out the baby bond with the bath water." Mrs. Clinton floated the baby bonds idea in the context of helping young people save for college or buy their first home. Her rivals noted 4 million babies are born each year in the United States, and the Rasmussen poll showed 60 percent of the likely voters they surveyed oppose the idea.

Republicans mocked her remark, and former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani joked during Tuesday's CNBC debate: "She's going to give $5,000 to every child born in America, with her picture on it." "I challenged her on it ... she has backed off that," he added, noting its $20 billion cost. Mrs. Clinton told reporters after making the comment Sept. 28 it was "just an idea I threw out to see what kind of reaction I'd get," and said if it was specific, she would propose a way to pay for it.

The Manchester Union Leader newspaper in New Hampshire, home to the first presidential primary, editorialized that the plan smacks of "financial irresponsibility" and a "blatant pander." Philip Klein, a writer at the conservative American Spectator magazine, characterized it as a "sloppy" episode that "smacks of political amateurism" for the normally "cautious and programmed" candidate.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Carrie Lukas and Rush

Answering Media Matters: A Real Time-Line of the "Phony Soldiers" Controversy
By Carrie Lukas
Monday, October 8, 2007

Media Matters has criticized me for my recent comments about Rush Limbaugh’s so-called “phony soldier” statement. On the Fox News Channel, I said that “about 30 seconds” after Rush used the term “phony soldier” he began talking about Jesse MacBeth (the war critic who lied about his military record). According to Media Matters, it is actually one minute and fifty seconds later: I was off by eighty seconds.

This hardly seems a critical distinction. If it wasn’t completely clear who Rush was referring to when he used the initial phrase, it became clear shortly thereafter. I hadn’t timed the lapse between the “phony soldier” term and the start of his next “Jesse MacBeth” statement—in the midst of a heated conversation, I used the term “thirty seconds” when what I really meant was “a short period of time later.” However in hindsight, given Media Matters’ increasingly desperate efforts to save face, I ought to have been more precise.

So let’s get more precise, because there is far more to the timeline of the “phony soldier” term than just these noted calls to Limbaugh’s program.

On Wednesday, September 24th, Rush Limbaugh recorded his Morning Update, which aired the following morning. He talked about how the antiwar left had made another celebrity of "Army Ranger" Jesse MacBeth, who claimed to have witnessed gruesome atrocities committed by American soldiers in Iraq. It turned out that MacBeth wasn’t really an army ranger, and has since been sentenced for falsifying his Army records. [The Morning Update] Also, on the evening of September 24th, ABC's World News with Charles Gibson [video] aired a package on military imposters, which used the phrase “phony heroes” three times and “phonies” once, and specifically discussed Jesse MacBeth. [link]

The day after that “morning update” on Jesse MacBeth aired, Rush took a call from "Mike in Chicago," [transcript] during the second hour of his show. Mike repeatedly claimed to be a Republican, and mentioned in passing that he used to be in the military. With regard to his claim to be Republican, Rush said, “You're not listening to what I say. You can't possibly be a Republican... the limitations that you want to oppose–impose–here are senseless, and they frankly betray or portray no evidence that you are a Republican.”

He then took a call from, “Another Mike. This one in Olympia, Washington.” [transcript] This caller was in the military, and referred to those who want us to just pull out of Iraq in order to keep the troops safe, ignoring the chaos which would require troops to return again. That led to the following exchange:
Rush: It's not possible intellectually to follow these people.

Caller: No, it's not. And what's really funny is that they never talk to real soldiers. They pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue –

Rush: The phony soldiers.

Caller: Phony soldiers. If you talk to any real soldier and they're proud to serve, they want to be over in Iraq, they understand their sacrifice and they're willing to sacrifice for the country.

The caller then digressed into a discussion of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Byron York reports that Rush explains that during the rest of that call, he asked a staff member to print out the previous morning’s “Morning Update” on phony soldiers. And as soon as the call was concluded, Rush immediately returned to his phony soldiers comment to reprise “the morning update that we did recently, talking about fake soldiers. This is a story of who the left props up as heroes.”

The next day (September 27th), Media Matters announced on its website “Rush Limbaugh called service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq ‘phony soldiers,’” and cited the brief portion of the transcript where the “phony soldiers” comment was made, ignoring his comments less than two minutes later on phony soldiers and the Morning Update from September 25. A few hours later, Democrats begin denouncing Rush based on Media Matters’ characterization of his comments.

By October 1st, Democrats were in full attack mode. There are numerous examples of irresponsible attacks on Rush—a private citizen, not a politician or political action group—but Senator Harkin’s stands out: [transcript] “I find it offensive that Rush Limbaugh, who never put on the uniform of this country, would attack the patriotism and the dedication of any soldier fighting in Iraq….What's most despicable is that Rush Limbaugh says these provocative things to make more money. So he castigates our soldiers. This makes more news…maybe he was just high on his drugs again.”

It is important contextually to know that it wasn’t only after, but before the “phony soldier” comment, that Rush was discussing phony soldiers who falsify their military records and so was the rest of the media. Yet Media Matters has ignored this evidence. It also has ignored Limbaugh’s explanation of what he was saying and his long record of respecting members of the U.S. military, including those who disagree with him.

Surely Media Matters recognizes that at most, it might initially have been unclear to whom Rush was referring when he first used the term “phony soldiers.” Yet a review of the evidence strongly suggests Rush was thinking specifically of soldiers (such as MacBeth) who falsify their records. Certainly nowhere does Limbaugh state that “phony” refers to service members who support U.S. withdrawal—a strained interpretation that Media Matters presents as hard fact. I suspect it’s precisely because Media Matters knows their assertion has so little merit that they are making an issue over a few dozen seconds in the timeline. If these seconds are critical to their case, then clearly they don’t have one.

Carrie Lukas is the vice president for policy and economics at the Independent Women’s Forum and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

How About This!