Hillary Clinton’s invoking of 9/11 to defend donations draws ire
Hillary Rodham Clinton defended her campaign contributions from Wall Street by invoking her work to help the financial sector rebuild after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, raising eyebrows among her Democratic challengers and Republicans alike. During Saturday’s second Democratic debate, Clinton was put on the defensive by rival Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders when he said Wall Street had been the major contributor to her campaigns. “Now maybe they’re dumb and they don’t know what they’re going to get, but I don’t think so,” he said. Clinton responded that she was representing New York in the Senate when downtown Manhattan was attacked and noted that she helped the city’s financial hub rebuild. “That was good for New York and it was good for the economy and it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our country,” she said, her voice rising. Her response drew an incredulous response on social media sites like Twitter, and the debate’s moderators asked Clinton to respond to one Twitter user, who took issue with her mention of 9/11 to justify the contributions. “Well, I’m sorry that whoever tweeted that had that impression because I worked closely with New Yorkers after 9/11 for my entire first term to rebuild,” Clinton said. “I had a lot of folks give me donations from all kinds of backgrounds, say, ‘I don’t agree with you on everything. But I like what you do. I like how you stand up. I’m going to support you.’ And I think that is absolutely appropriate.” The exchange highlighted one of Sanders’ main critiques of Clinton: That she has maintained close ties to Wall Street executives during her political career and would be less forceful in policing the risky behavior of financial firms that Sanders says led to the economic downturn in 2008 and 2009. Both Sanders and ex-Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley support reinstating the Glass-Steagall law which once separated commercial and investment banking but was repealed in 1999 under her husband, President Bill Clinton. The former secretary of state says repealing Glass-Steagall wouldn’t go far enough to curb risks pushed by a shadow banking system. When Clinton raised Wall Street donations along with 9/11, her Democratic rivals quickly bounced. In the post-debate “spin room,” former O’Malley told reporters, “I’ll let her answer that gaffe. I think it was one of the biggest ones of the night.” Mark Longabaugh, a top Sanders’ adviser, said, “Do I think it’s a legitimate defense? No. I don’t see how you can make those two pieces go together.” He called the exchanges over Wall Street the “pivotal moments of the debate.” Republicans said Clinton had shamefully hid behind the 9/11 attacks to deflect attention from her ties to her wealthiest donors. And they signaled that the response would likely find its way into advertising if Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee. “It’s an intersection between stupid and offensive, and I think that’s going to be a big problem as the campaign heads into the general election,” said Sean Spicer, the Republican National Committee’s chief strategist. Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta told reporters the Clinton’s “integrity was impugned and what she was saying was that she was proud to represent the state of New York, to help rebuild lower Manhattan.” “When people attack her and call her quote-unquote the ‘Senator from Wall Street,’ they ought to remember that she was instrumental in trying to rebuild an important part of the New York economy,” he said. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Can-do campaign biographies: There’s often more to the story
For most presidential candidates, a compelling personal history is an essential item in the campaign tool kit. Think Hillary Rodham Clinton and her campaign statements about fighting for women. Marco Rubio and his biography of the immigrant family that made good. Carly Fiorina and her “secretary to CEO” career path. Ben Carson and his up-by-the-bootstraps persona. For an electorate hungering for authenticity, a strong back story matters. But, just as tales at the dinner table sometimes get embellished, so do stories on the campaign trail. Blame human nature, fuzzy memory or political calculation. In any event, “if you’re going to err, you are probably going to err on the side of advancing your own cause — and that’s true for everybody,” says Stanley Renshon, a political psychologist at New York University. As Donald Trump wrote in one his books, “A little hyperbole never hurts.” Some candidate narratives are rock solid. Others fall apart on closer inspection. And many fall somewhere in between: a little bit cock-eyed or requiring the addition or subtraction of a key detail or two. Questions about a biography can be telling to voters, Renshon says. “If your biography is suspect, and who you say you are needs to be revised frequently,” he says, “then how are we going to be tell whether or not, when you say you are going to do something for us, that you actually will wind up doing that?” A closer look at some of the tales told by the campaign class of 2016 — and the back story to those back stories. HILLARY CLINTON Clinton re-raised some eyebrows this week with her Veterans Day tale of checking out whether she should join the Marines back in 1975. She was 27 that year, the year she married Bill Clinton and was working as a lawyer in Arkansas. She said the Marine recruiter “looks at me and he goes, ‘Um, how old are you?’ ” Clinton recalled. “And I said, ‘Well, I’m 26, I’ll be 27.’ And he goes, ‘Well, that’s kind of old for us.’ And then he says to me … ‘Maybe the dogs will take you,’ ” meaning the Army.” Why would Clinton, a lawyer, want to join the Marines? The idea was met with skepticism back in 1994, when she told the story as first lady, and again this week, when Republicans used it as an opportunity to rehash any number of alleged Clintonian embellishments. In response to a recent Associated Press query, her campaign said “her sole reason for visiting the recruitment center was to determine if there was a suitable opportunity for her to serve in some capacity. Her interest was sincere and it is insulting, but not surprising, that Republicans would attack her for this, too. “ The episode inevitably brought fresh reminders of Clinton’s 2008 tale about a harrowing visit to war-torn Bosnia in March 1996 as first lady. Clinton, during her 2008 run for president, recalled landing under sniper fire and running with her head down to get in her vehicle. She joked that one mantra around the Clinton White House was that “if the place was too small, too dangerous or too poor, send Hillary.” Security was very tight on Clinton’s goodwill tour to Bosnia, but officials said at the time that she took no extraordinary risks. Video of the visit shows her being greeted by a child on the tarmac and given a warm hug — not ducking and running. BEN CARSON The retired neurosurgeon and political neophyte has crept to the front of Republican polls with his inspirational tale of rising above an impoverished upbringing in Detroit and overcoming violent tendencies as a youth to reach the top ranks of medicine. His campaign has brought a cascade of questions about elements of his personal history. Carson last week clarified previous claims that he’d been offered a scholarship to West Point, saying that while he’d been told he could get an appointment to the school, he never applied. He also faced questions about his oft-repeated claim that he tried to stab a close friend as a teenager. Citing privacy concerns, his campaign has refused to name the person involved. In addition, police in Baltimore recently said they didn’t have enough information to verify Carson’s account of being held at gunpoint at a fast-food restaurant there more than 30 years ago. Carson said at the latest GOP debate that he’d faced lies about his life story and undergone unprecedented public scrutiny. “Thank you for not asking me what I said in the 10th grade. I appreciate that,” he told the moderators. CARLY FIORINA Fiorina loves to recount her tale of rising from a secretary position to the executive suite at Hewlett-Packard as a story that is “only possible in this nation and proves that every one of us has potential.” Her political action committee’s website is fromsecretarytoceo.com. This isn’t exactly a rags-to-riches story, though. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was an abstract painter. Fiorina’s stint as a secretary at a real estate brokerage firm came when the Stanford graduate quit law school after deciding it wasn’t for her. “I answered the phones. I typed. I filed,” she recounted in a 2001 commencement address at Stanford. “My parents were, understandably, quite concerned. This wasn’t exactly what they’d hoped for, for their Stanford graduate.” Eventually, she went off to Italy to teach English, and then decided to go to business school and get an MBA. From there she soon began her march up the management ladder. MARCO RUBIO Rubio’s bio on his Senate website says his parents “came to America from Cuba in 1956 and earned their way to the middle class working humble jobs — my father as a bartender in hotels and my mom as a maid, cashier and retail clerk.” That’s a revised version of the story Rubio related early on as a freshman senator, when he offered himself as “the son of exiles” who “understand what it
A round-up of Sunday editorials from Alabama’s leading newspapers
A round-up of Sunday editorials from Alabama’s leading newspapers: The Anniston Star – A fine week for the GOP In the span of two days, Donald Trump has said he would “bomb the (expletive) out of” ISIS if he were president, gave a rambling, nonsensical campaign speech in Iowa and enjoyed a little Friday the 13th fun at the expense of his chief rival, Ben Carson. It’s Trump, unfiltered and raw as he battles Carson for the top spot among Republican presidential polls. At some point, the GOP side of the 2016 campaign will surely evolve into a more thoughtful discussion about policy and America’s needs. For now, however, the second level of Republicans in most polls — Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush — continues to be overshadowed by Trump’s volume and Carson’s odd statements. If the New York billionaire was trying to recapture Republican headlines this week, he succeeded. His statement about ISIS was crude, and it made for a good sound bite. It drew a few laughs, like a dirty locker-room joke. Plus, and let’s be frank, saying you’d bomb terrorists into submission is easy on the campaign trail and much harder to do once in the Oval Office. His 90-minute Iowa speech was less an oration and more of a “sit down at the bar and hear The Donald carry on.” If Trump thought it, he said it, ramifications be damned. He pumped his new book. He touted his resume. He railed against President Obama and Carson, none of which is new ground. No reason to have a script if you’re not going to stay on it, anyway. The Birmingham News – Paris Attacks: Do the bad guys win in the real world? It was a long night in Paris, and they’ll have many more. My wife and I stayed up watching the horrible events unfold. The chaos, confusion and pain were palpable. I imagine this is what it felt like across the Atlantic watching the terrorist attacks of 9/11 unfold in the United States. I was tired this morning. I’ve also been tired of feeling like we’re permanently trapped between war and peace. My sons don’t know what happened in France. All they know was that it’s 6 am on a Saturday. Neither the Legos inside nor the piles of leaves outside are going to play with themselves. As we scrounged for breakfast before setting out this morning, I randomly asked them a question from a heavy heart: “Boys, do the bad guys win in the real world?” Maybe I hoped for them to give me a “superhero” style answer to lift my spirits or at least demonstrate the childish innocence with regard to the evils we truly face. “Of course not, dad,” said my eldest. “If you’re angry, you don’t win.” The Decatur Daily – There’s reason for the early season Every year it seems as if the Christmas season starts earlier than it did last year, and every year the complaints about the early Christmas season start earlier, too. Maybe it’s the sight of artificial Christmas trees for sale before we’ve had a chance to carve pumpkins for Halloween, or maybe it’s the Christmas movies that start airing on the Hallmark Channel in September, but it all seems a little too much. At least the companies that used to sell mail-order Christmas music — compilations of Perry Como, Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley seasonal standards — had an excuse. Those old vinyl albums and cassette tapes took six to eight weeks to deliver, which is so 20th century. Dothan Eagle – A new generation of appreciation Each year on Nov. 11, many Americans stop to recognize the efforts of the men and women who have served our country in the military. Some communities have parades, some have events, and some have both, but most have some sort of recognition of the sacrifice our veterans have made in the service of our country. These moments are usually attended by adults – veterans themselves, family members, and others who have lived through wartime and recognize the depth of gratitude our nation owes its committed veterans. But on Wednesday in Ozark, the Veterans Day ceremony at Woodlawn Memorial Gardens was remarkable in that there were many young people in attendance, as well as participating in the ceremony in some way. Some are involved with Carroll High School’s JROTC program. Others are involved with Dale County’s Girl Scouts. Some simply attended because they wanted to. What brought the young people to the ceremony isn’t really important; it’s their interest in marking the contribution of the men and women of service that matters most. The Enterprise Ledger – Thank goodness for the buckle polishers On Tuesday, the U.S. Marine Corps celebrated its 240th birthday, and today of course is what we celebrate as Veterans Day, although its origin began as Armistice Day in 1919 when President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the following : “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…” I respect anyone until they give me reason to do otherwise, but someone that has fought for our country so that we can live in the greatest country in the world, well, they get a respect level a notch or two above most. Quite frankly, I’ve had some unpleasant dealings over the years with members and former members of the military. I’ve had a general at a college and a superintendent many years ago with military backgrounds lie to me as sure as the nose on their face, and a law enforcement officer in another state that was ex-military was about the most hypocritical person I’ve ever seen in uniform. Oh, the stories I could