Now if you watch this and don't get what the problem is, let me slightly revise the dialogue:
“You don't believe that Senator Obama's a Jew?” Kroft asked Sen. Clinton.
“Of course not. I mean, that, you know, there is no basis for that. I take him on the basis of what he says. And, you know, there isn't any reason to doubt that,” she replied.
“You said you'd take Senator Obama at his word that he's not…a Jew. You don't believe that he's…,” Kroft said.
“No. No, there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know,” she said.
Makes my skin crawl. For the record, Kroft's sort of smarmy sneer at the word 'muslim' is probably the worst moment for me. Hillary Clinton, if she were Bill Clinton, would've given Kroft the smack down for incipient bigotry. Rather she plays into it.
9 comments:
Aw, c'mon, it's not like he prefaced it with the word "dirty".
The biggest problem that Hillary's recent attempts to go negative on Obama creates for her campaign is that it makes her look desperate. The country needs a leader, not a snarky rerun of "Desperate Housewives".
Ewww. As if being a Muslim was against the law or something.
The whole thing disgusts me. I felt like he was baiting her and she could have just stopped the questioning, but like you said, she was a player.
I love politics. But only the lily-white Christian kind! Praise Jesus and pass the ammo.
I agree that Bill would've given him a good beating for that, but my guess is that Hillary's not feeling confident enough to do that at this point in the race. Not that I'm excusing her limp reply--especially not the "As far as I know" crap--but...
Agree with you and dguzman - Bill would've kicked his ass.
One of my problems with her is I wish all this fight and spirit were aimed at George W. Bush and company these last few years.
She'd be sailing to the White House in that case.
I'm irked about the 3am ad, but I think this one was been overblown, especially since I've read plenty about it and this is my first time seeing it. Kroft, as does Russert and Matthews and all of them, had his answer and kept pressing her, and it's a stupid question to begin with. The tone with which she says, "as far as I know" to me sounds like "that's crazy" versus something malicious.
Should she have smacked him down? Yeah, but I'm somewhat sympathetic to politicians on this one. Hack journalists wield tremendous power. For instance, remember Russert repeatedly pressing Obama on that Farrakhan BS? Had Obama gotten testy with Russert, it would have been spun that Obama doesn't think anti-Semitism is a big deal.
The dynamics here are a bit different in that Clinton's being asked about Obama versus Obama being asked about himself, but the BS dynamic from the reporter is precisely the same. Kroft wanted his gotcha moment, since of course he knows the question is BS. I'm inclined to grill Clinton over other things than this.
There's nothing wrong with being a human being, so far as I know.
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