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Video: Russert vs. Hillary


UPDATE 2:25 p.m.:


Here's Hillary saying Obama's record on the Iraq war is "fair game":



Hat tip: Robert Greenwald.


-- RSM


UPDATE 2:05 p.m.:


At least one pro-Clinton blogger scores today's "Meet the Press" session a win for Team Hillary. Christy Hardin Smith of Firedoglake:

Whatever anyone may think of Sen. Clinton, she clearly prepared for this interview. She had a command of facts and voting records, and managed to slip in a "you can't just vote present" zinger at Sen. Obama with a smile on her face. . . . Her ability to turn Russert's policy and political strategy questions right back at him made me laugh out loud more than once. And his frustration at not making inroads with any of his carefully edited gotcha attempt clips was visible in the crestfallen and constipated look on his face throughout.
-- RSM


UPDATE 2 p.m.:


Still looking for video. Meanwhile, Obama's firing back:

Obama said Clinton misrepresented his record of consistent opposition to the war.
"What we saw this morning was why the American people are tired of Washington politicians and the games they play, said Obama, during a conference call, as he accepted the endorsement of Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri. "She started this campaign saying that she wanted to make history and lately she has been spending some time rewriting it."
-- RSM


UPDATE 1:50 p.m.:


Jeremy Dibbell at the Moderate Voice:

Hillary Clinton's "Meet the Press" appearance this morning was one of the most overt displays of the old Clintonian attack politics I've seen in this campaign. Her blatant and transparent attempts to blame Obama's campaign for"deliberately distorting" unfortunate remarks she, her husband, and others associated with her campaign have been making in recent days were, frankly, sickening and unworthy of a candidate for high national office.
-- RSM


UPDATE 1:40 p.m.:


As predicted, the blogosphere goes wild.


-- RSM


UPDATE 1:30 p.m.:


Still hunting the video, but here's the Associated Press account:

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested Sunday that Barack Obama's campaign had injected racial tension into the presidential contest, saying her comments about Martin Luther King's role in the civil rights movement had been "distorted" by Obama's supporters. . . .
Both New York Sen. Clinton and her husband, the former president, have engaged in damage control this week after black leaders criticized them for comments they made shortly before the New Hampshire primary last Tuesday.
The senator was quoted as saying King's dream of racial equality was realized only when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, while Bill Clinton said Illinois Sen. Obama was telling a "fairly tale" about his opposition to the Iraq war.
The former president since has appeared on several black radio programs to say he was referring to Obama's record on the Iraq war, not on his effort to become the nation's first black president.
-- RSM


EARLIER ...


Oops, I don't have the video yet. Sorry. That was terribly unfair -- which is what Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign will likely say about Tim Russert's brutal pummeling of their candidate on "Meet the Press," today.


I've checked Hot Air, Memeorandum and YouTube and still haven't found video, but it was a hard-hitting interview. Hotline On Call has some excerpts:

HRC ... said a remark she made about Martin Luther King Jr.'s success turning on President Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act is also being mischaracterized.
"I think it such an unfair and unwarranted attempt to misinterpret and mischaracterize what I said," she told Russert.
She said that, "This is an unfortunate storyline that the Obama campaign has pushed very selectively." . . .
"If you are running for president based primarily on a speech you gave in 2002, and speeches you have given since most notably at the 2004 Democratic convention, then I think it is fair to say we need to know more beyond the words," she said.
The blogosphere will go nuts over this. Whatever anyone says about Russert, it will be hard to accuse him of being "in the tank" for Hillary after this.


Expect updates ...


-- Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor, The Washington Times

Comments (2)

Finger pointing is indicative of blame politics where the other guy is always responsible for what happenened and nothing is done to fix the problem. What can you expect from a member or members of a Congress who have been on a blame politics agenda for the last seven years. You really can't expect that agenda to change if one achieves the presidency through it. The only thing that can be said about the media is that they thrive on this type of back and forth adolescence.

What I love about Hillary Clinton is that she's never responsible for the bad things her husband did, but she LOVES taking credit for the good things he did. Tim Russert asked her point blank yesterday if she knew anything about the pardon for Mark Rich, a major convicted felon. She said she knew nothing about it. But I thought she and Bill talked about everything? I thought she was his best and closest political adviser? So how did she miss this little piece of news, especially since Rich was a close family friend to both Bill and Hillary? But Hillary loves to take credit for many of the policy decisions Bill made, such as his judgement on the economy. Well, if that's the case, then what was her opinion about Osama bin Laden when Bill Clinton was President? If they shared all of this information and she was such a close advisor, what did she think should have been done to Osama bin Laden when he attacked either the USS Cole or the two American embassies in Africa? Did she want to take bin Laden out then? Why didn't Bill Clinton kill bin Laden when he had a chance to in Afghanistan? Did Hillary talk to Bill about this decision and, if so, why didn't they decide to kill this man back in the late 1990s? How did she miss this little conversation with Bill?

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