Obama Release on Clinton Schedules; Obama Conference Call

  • Share
  • Read Later

Whoever told reporters that HRC’s schedules held “no smoking guns” must posses a somewhat insensitive fire alarm. The Obama campaign sees things quite differently and is particularly eager to set a match to the documentation of the First Lady’s involvement in pushing through NAFTA:

AP — She also was an early champion of the North American Free Trade Agreement that she now criticizes in her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. The papers show her holding at least five meetings in 1993 aimed at helping win congressional approval of the deal. [Link]

ABC — One interesting event in Sen. Hillary Clinton’s just-released schedules from the 1990s comes on Nov. 10 1993, when the former first lady was to serve as the closing act during a briefing on NAFTA, the trade agreement she now assails…”It wasn’t a drop-by it was organized around her participation,” said one attendee. “Her remarks were totally pro-NAFTA and what a good thing it would be for the economy. There was no equivocation for her support for NAFTA at the time. Folks were pleased that she came by. If this is a still a question about what Hillary’s position when she was First Lady, she was totally supportive if NAFTA. [Link]

The HRC campaign disputes this particular account, and went so far as to sic David Gergen on ABC’s Jake Tapper, who obliges, but adds a good footnote:

The Clinton campaign has asked that I post this recent quote on CNN from Mr. Gergen, referenced above, saying, “I was actually there in the Clinton White House during the NAFTA fight and I must tell you Hillary Clinton was extremely unenthusiastic about NAFTA. And I think that’s putting it mildly. I’m not sure she objected to all the provisions of it but she just didn’t see why her husband and that White House had to go and do that fight. She was very unhappy about it and wanted to move on to health care. So I do think there’s some justification for her camp saying, you know, she’s never been a great backer for NAFTA.”

It’s long-established that Hillary Clinton wanted to tackle health care before NAFTA. I don’t know that that necessarily undermines the idea that she supported NAFTA. But if she didn’t, then why was she telling this room full of businesswomen how great it would be for the economy?

I’m not sure why Clinton feels the need to dispute whether or not she was for NAFTA at the time* — she refuses to apologize for her support for the war, after all, arguably a decision that has had just as a profound impact on the country and the world. If she’s changed her mind — as she has, she says, on many signature issues of her husband’s administration — that seems less pressing than explaining what, exactly, she’d do about NAFTA now. This “trade time-out” business seems less like a solution than a platitude. A somewhat condescending one at that. And then there’s the question of whether she — or Obama — are serious about doing anything at all…

*Of course, her involvement in NAFTA is one of the few concrete examples of her being active in policy proposals beyond health care, so, yeah, I guess she’s in kind of a bind. Would HRC have been better off not emphasizing her “experience” in the White House to start with, and instead focused on her objectively successful Senate career? Or would that have made her just another junior senator, this one without “a great speech” to fall back on? If that seems like a stupid question, I’m sure you’ll let me know.

Full Obama release after the jump. Oh, and there’s an Obama conference call — on NAFTA — in a few minutes. Suggested Qs welcome!

Hillary Clinton’s schedules as First Lady have finally allowed for the actual vetting of her foreign policy experience (consistent absence during important moments), her undeniable advocacy for NAFTA (at least five meetings to promote it) and a real look at how much work she did to push the Family and Medical Leave Act (none that can be discerned).


As for 3:00 AM phone calls, it doesn’t even appear there were even any 3 PM foreign policy calls of note.

Here’s a roundup early findings from the White House schedules.

KEEPING BUSY ADVOCATING FOR NAFTA

AP —
She also was an early champion of the North American Free Trade Agreement that she now criticizes in her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. The papers show her holding at least five meetings in 1993 aimed at helping win congressional approval of the deal. [Link] <http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080320/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_papers;_ylt=AvRapsRtfNtOqPhrQ6uBldqs0NUE>

ABC —
One interesting event in Sen. Hillary Clinton’s just-released schedules from the 1990s comes on Nov. 10 1993, when the former first lady was to serve as the closing act during a briefing on NAFTA, the trade agreement she now assails…”It wasn’t a drop-by it was organized around her participation,” said one attendee. “Her remarks were totally pro-NAFTA and what a good thing it would be for the economy. There was no equivocation for her support for NAFTA at the time. Folks were pleased that she came by. If this is a still a question about what Hillary’s position when she was First Lady, she was totally supportive if NAFTA. [Link] <http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/03/clintons-1993-n.html>

NOT AROUND FOR RED-PHONE MOMENTS

AP —
Clinton says her years as first lady equip her to handle foreign policy and national security as president. But the schedules show trips packed with plainly traditional activities for a first lady, along with some substance. For example, in her January 1994 visit to Russia with her husband, her schedule is focused on events with other wives. She sat in on a birthing class at a hospital, toured a cathedral and joined prominent women in a lunch of blinis with caviar and salmon. [Link] <http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080320/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_papers_26>

LA Times —
Federal archivists on Wednesday released 11,000 pages of schedules from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s eight years as first lady, but the material offers little to support her assertion that her White House experience left her best prepared to become president. [Link] <http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-clinton20mar20,0,2219333.story?page=1>

New York Times —
The documents offer no support for her claims, made during the presidential campaign, that she helped to negotiate the Irish peace accords or facilitated the flow of refugees in the Balkans. [Link] <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/us/politics/19cnd-archives.html?_r=1&amp;hp&amp;oref=slogin>

New York
Sun — But on many occasions abroad, Mrs. Clinton served as little more than a companion to her husband, the records indicate; several speeches and other overseas presidential events that she attended contain a parenthetical notation at the bottom of the schedule that Mrs. Clinton “has no formal role.” [Link] <http://www.nysun.com/article/73254>

Washington
Post — In the schedules for Clinton’s foreign travels, it was difficult to discern the foreign policy substance that might have been involved. A week-long trip to Africa in early 1997, for example, consisted largely of tours of schools, clinics and tourist sites. Every stop featured a 15- to 45-minute “courtesy visit” with the head of government (usually including the leader’s wife and Chelsea Clinton) but with no mention of substantive foreign policy issues. Yet such trips form much of the basis for the Clinton campaign’s claim that she has interacted with more than 80 foreign leaders…In Japan, the schedule shows, she was shepherded around with ambassadors’ wives and other G-7 spouses to museums, gardens, theaters, dinners and teas. The only policy item on the schedule was a visit to a Tokyo incineration plant for an environmental lecture, and she was taken there “via spousal bus,” according to the documents. A subsequent stop in South Korea featured more of the same. [Link] <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/19/AR2008031901317_pf.html>

The Guardian —
On the day that dozens of US cruise missiles rained down on Serbia in an attempt to punish Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for the country’s onslaught against ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo, first lady Hillary Clinton was far from the White House war room: instead she was touring ancient Egyptian ruins, including King Tut’s tomb and the temple of Hatshepsut. And on the day before the signing of the Good Friday agreement in Belfast she was at an event called “Hats on for Bella” in Washington. In her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton has touted her experience in the Clinton White House as preparation to lead the nation in a time of crisis. “Ready on day one” has been her slogan. But an initial reading of some of the more than 11,000 pages of Clinton’s schedules from her days as first lady, released today by the National Archives and the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library, shows that she was often far from the site of decision-making during some of the most pivotal events of Bill Clinton’s presidency. [Link] <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/19/hillaryclinton.uselections20081>

AND WHAT ABOUT “HELPING TO PASS” FMLA?

New York Times —
Neither is there evidence in them to back up her claim that she helped pass the Family and Medical Leave Act, the first legislation Mr. Clinton signed as president. The legislation, sponsored by Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, sailed through Congress and landed on Mr. Clinton’s desk 10 days after he was inaugurated. Indeed, on the day Mr. Clinton signed the bill into law, Feb. 5, 1993, there is no indication on that day’s calendar that she attended. [Link] <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/us/politics/19cnd-archives.html?_r=1&amp;hp&amp;oref=slogin>

ABC —
One notable absence in the 11,000 pages of the former First Lady’s schedule from the National Archives released today — any mention on her schedules of the Family and Medical Leave Act before her husband signed the bill into law. That’s interesting, because in speeches and on her website, the Clinton campaign repeatedly gives Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, credit for “helping to pass” the Family and Medical Leave Act. The bill was signed into law on February 5, 1993 — 16 days after Bill Clinton was sworn into office. Though then-Gov. Bill Clinton often heralded the bill, which former President George HW Bush had vetoed, on the campaign trail in 1992, there’s really no evidence that Hillary Clinton “helped to pass” the bill, which was the baby of Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn, and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. [Link] <http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/03/family-and-medi.html>