http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080211/pl_nm/usa_politics_dc

Truman, of course, inherited his troubles from one of the Democrat Party's most beloved and honored presidents of all time: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The article is, however, primarily about the fact that Hillary recently had to fire her campaign manager and loan her campaign $5M in order to stay competitive with Barak Obama.

EDIT: After two complaints that the quote mentioned isn't there, I went back and checked the original link I posted. The self-comparison Hillary makes regarding Truman is no longer in the article, but interestingly enough a Yahoo search on +"Hillary Clinton" +Truman +"two wars" continues to bring up a direct link to the article.

Fortunately, the LA Times continues to provide the original quote:

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-hillary11feb11,0,3725484,full.story

She doesnt say anything like that in the article you linked to.... Without any context, it's difficult to tell the point she is trying to make. She was probably saying something about how difficult the job of the next president will be. Or maybe a knock at Bush, implying that the last time the country was in this bad a condition, we were still coming out of WWII and the depression.

I really don't see a reason why she would go out of her way to bash FDR.

I directly quoted the article, which directly quoted her. Yes, she did say that.



The article cites Hillary as directly comparing herself to Truman. You can take it up with Reuters, it's their article.



She didn't. It's called a flub. Bush is famous for saying stupid things like this. But in Hillary's case, it was a prepared remark as opposed to a brain fart.

Yes, whoever takes the reigns....it's not pretty

Hmmmm... to say she bashed FDR is taking it out of context a little. Then again, her main claim of qualification was she was married to a president. I don't know about you but, if some guy claimed he was a doctor just because he his wife used to be a nurse for a few years then retired then I wouldn't base medical decisions on his advice or make him my personal physician for the next 4-8 years

Out of context....she hardly slammed FDR.

Four things.

1. The article you linked does not have that quote... Anywhere.

2. "I had a historian tell me the other day..." She was quoting SOMEONE ELSE

3. Her campaign manager wasn't fired. She stepped down.

4. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Actually, I cut and pasted the quote from the article itself. But since you're the second person to say it isn't there I went and checked --- and the quote has been removed. However, a Yahoo search still brings up a direct link to the article when including "Truman" and "two wars" in the search criteria regardless of the fact that these terms are no longer in the article itself. And the LA Times still quotes Hillary saying the same thing (see link in edit of original post, above).



And your point is?



Which is pol-speak for "was fired". About the only time a campaign manager is EVER openly fired is when they're busted doing something illegal the campaign wants to claim it had nothing to do with.



Thanks for catching that. Corrected. -:D

That perhaps she doesn't agree with the quote? Possibly? Since she was quoting what someone else had said. Quoting someone else's opinion =/= own opinion.

And your reasoning for this is?



So when a candidate for office criticizes the incumbent by quoting someone else, and that quote ends up being a sufficiently wide brush that the criticism ends up tarring one of their own party's revered icons, then they didn't really mean to use the quote in the first place?

Talk about taking things out of context...

Yes, I knew where to find the article. Which is why I was able to give you the second point.


My point is that SHE did not "slam" FDR. She was quoting what a historian had told her, and that is the way she phrased it. That's like going up to your friend and saying "That guy over there told me that your mother is a fall-down drunk". It doesn't mean you said it. Hell, you may not even believe it.


Man, you are exhausting.

Yeah she may have been fired, she may have left for a number of reasons. Until you have PROOF, you shouldn't make accusations like that. That's what's wrong with the internet. People can say what they FEEL is right and it becomes perceived as fact. Besides, firing your CM in the middle of primaries is not a smart thing to do. Especially because it gets spun by people like you.

But, on the other hand, if you were failing in the polls, what would you do? Give your campaign manager a pat on the back and say "You're doing a heckofa job!"?


This doesn't mean I support Hillary in the least. I am for Obama all the way. But when you spin, no one wins.

Neither did the person she quoted. She MEANT to slam Bush. But her criticism, and that of the person she quoted, were based on a direct comparison between Bush's performance and FDR's. That is called "tarring with a wide brush and hitting yourself". It's a flub worthy of Bush himself.



You're reduced to claiming that Hillary didn't mean what she said merely because she was quoting someone whom she evinced no disagreement with.



It's amazing how often I hear the same exact defense spouted by the conservative side of the fence...only to earn the response that the defender is being naive, partisan, or engaged in wishful thinking.

This is politics. No one bails on a campaign management position unless they've had a major falling-out, a scandal, or a debilitating injury. Unless they've been fired because the campaign is going south...which it is with Hillary, who's now lost her "insurmountable" lead.



If the firing was done openly, there could be no accusation of "spin", could there? On the other hand, "cordial departures for unrelated reasons" are themselves part of the spin machine --- which allows a defense by people like you. -



No, I'd fire them. In my case, though, I have a documented history of being stupidly honest --- I would say they were fired, and why. As the Arizona Republic once said of me: "His inability to obfuscate does not portend a bright political future". I was on the ballot for governor at the time. Naturally enough for a third-party candidate, I lost by a huge margin. -



Spotting the spin and speaking the truth against it is the first step towards reformation of politics.

Priceless.

That's really how I interpret it at all. FDR's performance has nothing to do with it. Roosevelt's problems were external and had a historic magnitude. I don't think average American would think the depression or WWII is the result of FDR or the performance of his presidency. On the other hand, the problems of Bush were, arguably, created or exacerbated by Bush's policy.

She's not making a direct comparison between FDR and Bush, she's making a direct comparison between the damages that resulted from a Bush White house to the damage incurred to the US from the most devastating war in human history and the greatest economic catastrophe of the modern era. An extremely exaggerated comparison, yes, but I honestly don't see it as a slam on FDR.

Who do I bill for my Ironymeter exploding?

Ah, but that's not how Hillary phrased it, is it? She merely pointed out that Truman had inherited two wars and left it at that. As for the Depression, FDR inherited that from Hoover...and Bush inherited a recession from Clinton.

It should also be obvious that international Islamic terrorism isn't the result of Bush's presidency either. Nor was 9/11/2001 the first attack on the World Trade Center...it was merely the first successful one. Similarly, the tensions in the Far East which ultimately led to Pearl Harbor didn't begin with FDR, so it would be wrong to accuse either president of being responsible for the overall conflict.



Not unless one wishes to argue using a standard that does not apply to FDR.



Neither, I'm sure, did Hillary.



First you'd have to have some irony to measure. -

It doesn't matter how she phrased it, that was the obvious intent of the words and that's how it'll be immediately interpreted in the minds of the average reader.



Not really. While 9-11 wasn't Bush's fault, the Iraq war clearly was Bush's fault to most people. And while few would blame FDR for being unable to recover from the great depression within 8 years, arguably it is Bush's fault that the economy has been sluggish to recover from this recession. In the minds of most people, the attribution of blame will be different. She doesn't say anything about the causes of either of the problems inherited by the different administrations, so these kind of associations are important in how the statement will be interpreted by most.

To you. That's called "subjective interpretation". And it's largely colored by your pre-existing impressions. So are mine.

At face value, she is saying exactly this: that the next president will inherit two wars as well as major issues with housing and health care, and that this has not been the case since Truman took office. Period.

On a purely emotional plane, this evokes --- and is obviously meant to invoke --- resentment against the incumbent president by suggesting that he has led the nation into a horrible situation.

On a purely logical plane, neither FDR nor Bush caused the housing slumps or problems with the medical industry. And while Bush actively pushed to get the US into a war, no student of history could say that FDR did not.

There is real criticism to be made of Bush, and also of FDR, if we are to be intellectually honest about it. Hillary isn't, and that was the point of my post. That people chose to interpret role-reversal as spin-doctoring bespeaks volumes of the prejudices that exist in our political system.



Also a subjective view. The confirmed facts are that by January 2001, Hans Blix determined Iraq had not accounted for over 1000 tonnes of chemical weapons. This was in addition to tens of thousands of chemical-warhead munitions and enough anthrax growth agent to manufacture some 5000 liters of biowarfare agent.

This was according to Iraq's own government documentation, taken during inspections.

Post-war inspections showed conclusively that Iraq was in violation of numerous points of the 1991 cease-fire agreement --- including various portions of the section covering WMDs (which included missile weaponry). Most of these violations were deliberate and systematic. And many of these violations were known about long before the invasion.

Cease-fires are not peace treaties. They are nothing more than time-outs while the warring sides negotiate. Any deliberate violation of a cease-fire allows any opposing signatory to reinitiate hostilities, unilaterally or otherwise.

The UN named the United States as a direct signatory to the cease-fire in UN Resolution 687. This is what made Bush the Elder's "No Fly Zones" and Clinton's "Operation Desert Fox" legitimate. By the same coin, Bush the Younger's 2003 invasion was legitimized by Iraq's ongoing cease-fire violations.

Hussein, not Bush, made the invasion necessary to enforcement of the cease-fire.



Minor point: FDR had three full terms and was in the midst of a fourth when he died. Closer to 16 years than 8.

That aside, the recession ended in November 2001. If one chooses to fiddle with the standards and introduce benchmarks not normally used to determine a recession --- such as unemployment and stock market statistics --- it ended no later than 2003.

Nor is the country currently in a recession, unless one (again) wishes to start redefining what qualifies as one.

Fair is fair.