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Hillary: Not a centrist
Townhall.com ^ | 1 June 2006 | Brent Bozell

Posted on 05/31/2006 6:49:30 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher

There are days when you get up and stare at the front page of the newspaper and you just have to put the paper back down. May 30 was one of those days. After escaping for the long Memorial Day weekend, one returns to the real world Tuesday morning. But those who read The Washington Post are reminded that some people live forever in the world of make believe. Witness the front-page headline: "Clinton Is A Politician Not Easily Defined: Senator's Platform Remains Unclear."

That is to politics what "The DaVinci Code" is to theology.

When you pick up the paper again and read the story, it's just awful. Political reporter Dan Balz, no babe in the woods, just embarrasses himself by declaring that Hillary's inner circle has discovered she has "a curious intellect, the absence of rigid ideology, an instinct for problem solving and a willingness to seek consensus even across party lines." In a telephone interview, Hillary told Balz she is in no way a rigid thinker, that she approaches each problem and tries "combining my beliefs and ideals with a search for practical solutions."

Balz is not so much reporting a news story as reproducing a sales pitch. It really ought to have the word "advertisement" above it in capital letters. It's a misleading commercial. If you bought President Hillary, you would not be getting the "absence of rigid ideology." You would get rigid liberal ideology, softened only by Slick Willie political posturing, with gullible journalists gleefully hooking on their bait.

This is not the first time The Washington Post has played gullible. Witness March 28, 2004, when this self-same Dan Balz was touting the emerging centrism of another presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry. He had "one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate," but "edged" toward centrism on key votes. In the primaries, Kerry's "rhetoric often tilted to the left, but not his positions." Balz boldly concluded that Kerry "has emerged from the primaries at the philosophical center of the party if not the country."

So Hillary is a centrist, just as John Kerry was a centrist. And so were Al Gore, and Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale. In which decade do the liberal media stop peddling these delusions?

Balz made it all the way through his Clinton story without ever referring to the voting scores kept by ideological groups. In the last five years, the American Conservative Union has reported that on its key Senate votes, her annual record was 12 percent conservative, 10 percent, 10 percent, zero percent in 2004, and then 12 percent again last year. Her career average is a score of 9 percent. How in the world does that number suggest an "unclear platform," something impossible to categorize?

Now take the liberal counterpart. Americans for Democratic Action found her to be 95 percent liberal on its key votes in her first four years, and she achieved liberal nirvana (100 percent) in 2005. Those "Senate hero" votes included voting against judicial nominee Janice Rogers Brown, voting to repeal Ronald Reagan's "Mexico City policy" preventing federal tax money from going to international abortion providers, and voting for Chuck Schumer's amendment that would forbid abortion protesters to declare bankruptcy to avoid fines or court judgments for their clinic protests. Some absence of a rigid ideology, that.

Balz reported that Hillary is "depicted as seeking the middle ground on abortion." Yes, she's "depicted" that way by liberal reporters like Dan Balz, but her voting record is no middle ground. Hillary Clinton has received a perfect 100 percent score from NARAL Pro-Choice America every year, and right now she is leading their fight to force the Food and Drug Administration to make the "Plan B" morning-after pill available without a prescription.

In the final analysis, Sen. Hillary and New York are perfect for each other. Political reporter Ryan Lizza recently reported in New York magazine that one of every 10 abortions in America occurs in New York, and seven of every 10 abortions in the state are performed in New York City. There are more abortions performed on minors, more repeat abortions, and more late abortions (over 21 weeks) in New York City than anywhere else in the country. In parts of the city, the ratio of abortions to births is one to one. It's the abortion capital of America.

All of these facts sit on the shelf for discussion when Sen. Hillary tries to become President Hillary. But if the Dan Balzes of the media have their way, they will only collect dust. These facts aren't any less true because the media puts on a blindfold and pretends they don't exist. Hillary is a liberal, and liberals tend to lose when they run for president, despite national reporters crying "centrist" from every street corner.


TOPICS: Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; balz; bozell; hildebeaste; hitlery; hrc; mrsbj; nokidding; noshootsherlock; witchofwashington; yathink
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Hitlery's a left-wing cow. She can't be viewed any other way.
1 posted on 05/31/2006 6:49:31 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
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To: Aussie Dasher

My personal; belief is that Hillary! and co. have concluded that it is not good to be the front runner at this point (esp with a stepping stone reelection just a few months away). Let someone else take the flak (Al Gore is always a good target) and become well known to the public so that by the time of the presidential primaries we are tired of the front runner and ready for fresh meat (see histories of early front runners over the last few decades). Hillary needs to keep her powder dry at this point.


2 posted on 05/31/2006 6:55:19 PM PDT by Paladin2 (If the political indictment's from Fitz, the jury always acquits.)
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To: Paladin2

Your description of Hitlery as "fresh meat" has turned my stomach (at least twice!)


3 posted on 05/31/2006 6:58:00 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher (The Great Ronald Reagan & John Paul II - Heaven's Dream Team!)
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To: Aussie Dasher

carpet-munching emmisary of satan


4 posted on 05/31/2006 7:03:13 PM PDT by rageaholic
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To: Aussie Dasher

If hitlery is a centrist then the tropic of Capricorn is the same as the Equator.


5 posted on 05/31/2006 7:05:17 PM PDT by Iam1ru1-2
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To: Paladin2

"My personal; belief is that Hillary! and co. have concluded that it is not good to be the front runner at this point (esp with a stepping stone reelection just a few months away). Let someone else take the flak (Al Gore is always a good target) and become well known to the public so that by the time of the presidential primaries we are tired of the front runner and ready for fresh meat (see histories of early front runners over the last few decades). Hillary needs to keep her powder dry at this point."

I agree 100%. Hillary is the General Secretary of the Democratic Party Politburo. She can yank back on Gore's leash at any time.


6 posted on 05/31/2006 7:06:31 PM PDT by strategofr (H-mentor:"pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it"Hillary's Secret War,Poe,p.198)
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To: Paladin2

Check out my Passover Analysis http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1617154/posts


7 posted on 05/31/2006 7:07:56 PM PDT by strategofr (H-mentor:"pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it"Hillary's Secret War,Poe,p.198)
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To: Aussie Dasher

Hillary is quite simply the end of the world.


8 posted on 05/31/2006 7:08:10 PM PDT by garyhope
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To: Aussie Dasher
She's a first-class manipulator with a tremendous media machine in her pocket. She will be seen however she chooses, and that choice will be dictated strictly with an eye to the most efficient means of acquiring political power.

Let us look at those unsavory aspects of the Clinton administration that have been lain at her door. Hillarycare, wherein she claimed a mandate to reform health care funding, closeted herself with 100 unelected and unaccountable "experts" and forged an enormous, unwieldy power grab that was little less than an outright government takeover of the country's largest industry. Travelgate, in which a nonpartisan insider named Dale was deemed to be in the way ("we need those slots for our people") and hence was ruthlessly framed and personally destroyed by the power of the federal government and at her personal behest. No one was indicted or prosecuted. The FBI file affair, in which intensely personal and confidential information on her political opponents somehow magically passed through her staff's hands and into a database (WHODB) run by her political party. No one was indicted or prosecuted. The Rose Law firm papers, mysteriously missing for two years and just as mysteriously located in her personal possession. Vince Foster. Whitewater. No one indicted, no one prosecuted.

That is the sort of politician Hillary Rodham Clinton would be because that's the sort of politician she is and has been. It is not to be described as "centrist." It is much more accurately described as lawless, dictatorial, ruthless, malevolent, and abusive.

9 posted on 05/31/2006 7:08:31 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Aussie Dasher
Hillary: Not a centrist...


10 posted on 05/31/2006 7:08:51 PM PDT by Echo Talon
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To: Aussie Dasher
In other news, Sun to Rise Tomorrow.
11 posted on 05/31/2006 7:13:28 PM PDT by MAexile (Bats left, votes right)
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To: Aussie Dasher; devolve; ntnychik; PhilDragoo; Smartass; bitt
Photobucket - Video and Image 

Hosting

12 posted on 05/31/2006 7:16:25 PM PDT by potlatch (Does a clean house indicate that there is a broken computer in it?)
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To: Aussie Dasher

No Sh_t Dick Tracy!


13 posted on 05/31/2006 7:28:43 PM PDT by aliquando (A Scout is T, L, H, F, C, K, O, C, T, B, C, and R.)
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To: potlatch; ntnychik; PhilDragoo; Czar; dixiechick2000; Alamo-Girl; doug from upland; Mia T; bitt; ...


14 posted on 05/31/2006 7:46:21 PM PDT by devolve (fx AMERICANS_KILLED_IN_2003_BY_ILLEGALS FBI-DOJ_REPORT_4380+4745=9125 NO__NUEVO__TEJAS!)
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To: devolve

And she looks like she means business!!


15 posted on 05/31/2006 7:53:59 PM PDT by potlatch (Does a clean house indicate that there is a broken computer in it?)
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To: Aussie Dasher

Rush has had these people (KKKlintons) pegged dead to rights for years. They re not leftists, rightists, centrists, or anything else; they re psychopaths. They dont believe in anything at all other than looking out for number one.


16 posted on 05/31/2006 7:56:02 PM PDT by tomzz
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To: Billthedrill

I'm still pissed about the cattle futures.


17 posted on 05/31/2006 7:56:49 PM PDT by mcenedo (lying liberal media - our most dangerous and powerful enemy)
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To: potlatch; ntnychik; PhilDragoo; devolve; OXENinFLA; bitt; La Enchiladita; JustPiper; kstewskis; ...

THE EVIL HITLARY KLINTOON


 

18 posted on 05/31/2006 8:01:26 PM PDT by Smartass (Vaya con Dios - And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets)
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To: rageaholic

I can't top that. How apt!


19 posted on 05/31/2006 8:02:25 PM PDT by printhead
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To: Smartass

That's a good one! Shall I add it to my collection?? Needless to ask, lol.


20 posted on 05/31/2006 8:04:34 PM PDT by potlatch (Does a clean house indicate that there is a broken computer in it?)
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