GOP blasts Clinton's 'Mad' jab at Bush

Huston Chronicle ^ | July 12, 2005 | MARC HUMBERT

[yoe]

Republicans took aim at Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday for a speech comparing President Bush to Mad magazine's freckle-faced, "What, me worry?" kid, Alfred E. Neuman.

A Republican National Committee official said the former first lady was "part of today's angry and adrift Democrat Party," while a spokesman for one of her potential 2006 Senate rivals said she was guilty of "insulting the president."

"At a time when President Bush and most elected officials are focused on the security of our nation, Mrs. Clinton seems focused on taking partisan jabs and promoting her presidential campaign," said New York's GOP chairman, Stephen Minarik. "Her priorities are clearly out of whack."

Clinton's attack on the president came Sunday during a speech in Colorado.

"I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Neuman is in charge in Washington," Clinton said during the inaugural Aspen Ideas Festival, organized by the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

The former first lady drew a laugh when she described Bush's attitude toward tough issues with Neuman's catch phrase: "What, me worry?"

It wasn't the first time that Clinton had likened Bush to the Mad kid. In April, she told New York Daily News reporters and editors, "We're in a very dangerous fiscal situation, and this administration is Alfred E. Neuman — what, me worry?"

As Clinton gears up for a Senate re-election race in New York next year and a possible White House presidential bid in 2008, her attacks on Bush have become sharper.

In her speech Sunday, she accused the president of damaging the economy by overspending while giving tax cuts to the rich, depriving U.S. soldiers of equipment needed to fight the war in Iraq and cutting funds for scientific research.

"Hillary Clinton's opportunistic attempt to market herself as a centrist is like a wolf dressing up in sheep's clothing," said RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt.

"Such thinly veiled rhetoric doesn't change the fact she is part of today's angry and adrift Democrat Party."

While polls show her to be leading the pack among potential 2008 Democratic presidential contenders, Clinton has said she is too wrapped up in her Senate work and re-election effort to think about that.

[Alia]

Crosslink: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Left What the press missed in Hillary Clinton's Aspen speech. by Edward Morrissey 07/13/2005 12:00:00 AM

Conclusion snip:

Perhaps Bush bears some passing physical resemblance to Alfred E. Neuman. However, the Democrats and the American left come closest to resembling the clueless targets of Mad's satirical darts of days gone by.

Excellent coverage (with links) on the MAD, MAD, MAD, WORLD OF HILLARY CLINTON. ! :)