Hillary Runs on Husband’s Record

RUSH: ‘Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday criticized President Bush for not spending enough on law enforcement and said police officers were ‘invisible’ to him. At a meeting of the National Association of Police Organizations, the New York senator promised more spending on police programs, including an anti-drug initiative and bulletproof vest program. ‘Honestly, it is like the police officers of our country, along with your families, who stand with you every single day in the dangerous and difficult work you do, are invisible to the president,’ she said. Clinton chastised Bush for a 2008 budget that she said would further cut the Community Oriented Police Services program…’

Now, does anybody remember a hundred thousand new cops? This was her husband’s program, which was a sham from the get-go. The way the hundred thousand new cops or whatever the number was worked, was the federal government would pay for these communities to hire new police officers, and then after each year, the federal government’s share of what they paid — the salaries of these new hires — would decline, would decrease. Finally, after a few years (and we’ve reached the years), the states or the local communities have to pick up the salaries of the hundred thousand cops that were hired, and it never ended up being a hundred thousand cops in the first place. So now the program is supposed to be expired. It has run its course. ‘That program was created under President Clinton to put more officers on the street. The original program expired seven years ago, but Congress has kept funding it.’ This is a great, dramatic example. We don’t have enough money for infrastructure, says David Yepsen (paraphrased). What are you going to do, Rudy? Where are you going to cut spending if you’re not going to raise taxes and so forth to fix the bridges?

We have more money than we know what to do with! The COPS program expired seven years ago, and we have continued to fund it, ladies and gentlemen. The House of Representatives last May voted to give more money to the program. Democrats have complained it was cut! It was not ‘cut.’ It was supposed to be expired! It had an end date, just like the SCHIP (with a P) children’s health insurance program. This was not to be extended. So here’s Hillary complaining that President Bush doesn’t spend enough money on police and law enforcement, says the police are ‘invisible’ to Bush — and of course, as with all socialists, what is her solution? Spend more money! So let’s see if this makes any sense. Hillary gets upset because the 2008 budget cuts funding the Community Oriented Police Service program. Of course, the program created by her husband. The program expired seven years ago. Congress has continued to fund it. Isn’t it funny how that works? Incremental, hardly noticed control of the feds over the state government. The program expired seven years ago, and they’ve kept paying it. There’s redundancy after redundancy after redundancy. So Hillary is upset because the president has cut funding for a program that her husband said would cease to exist seven years ago. It just literally it makes no sense.

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RUSH: This is an amazing story. This is from our buddy Ron Fournier, of the Associated Press. ‘Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is running for president on her husband’s White House record, and it’s a strategy that cuts both ways.’ I have to tell you something. If there were a Republican equivalent here, and a female wife of a former Republican president, were running with such a paper-thin record of competence that she had to run on her husband’s record, she’d never hear the end of it, and the feminists would be out there bellyaching and so forth. But here, with Mrs. Clinton ‘running on her husband’s White House record…it’s a strategy that cuts both ways. The New York senator and her husband, former President Bill Clinton,’ it says here, ‘constantly remind voters of the U.S. economic prosperity in the 1990s…’ compared to like what? Today? ‘and his record on the environment, college aid and family medical leave. Press releases from the campaign often include sentences that start, ‘Under the Clinton administration …’ ‘Yesterday’s news was pretty good,’ Bill Clinton said last month in Iowa while campaigning with his wife. But yesterday’s news,’ meaning his eight years in the White House, ‘is not always easy to explain today.

‘A San Francisco blogger made that painfully clear to Sen. Clinton during the Yearly…’ whatever, the kook fringe convention, ‘when he asked whether she would support or repeal four major pieces of legislation enacted during the Clinton administration — the Defense of Marriage Act, the Telecommunications Act, the North American Free Trade Agreement and welfare reform. All four laws are unpopular with liberal voters who historically dominate Democratic primaries and caucuses.’ Everything is unpopular with these unhappy people. In fact, I just read on one of these kook blogs that some Kos kid, one of these kook fringe in the convention, said he would rather die in a terrorist attack than to have Valerie Plame’s name to have been outed! These people are sick, just genuinely sick and deranged. Anyway, ‘The San Francisco man,’ according to Ron Fournier, ‘had put Clinton on the spot. So she hedged and dodged in a complicated set of answers to explain herself. The Defense of Marriage Act, which denied federal recognition of same-sex marriages and gave states the right to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages, ‘served a very important purpose,’ she told the blogger. The law staved off Republican efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage, Clinton said, an argument that seems to consign her husband’s support of the law to the ‘necessary evil’ category.’

By the way, she was also asked a question. Ron Fournier said, ‘It is rare to hear Clinton…admit ignorance on a policy issue. But doing so came in handy as she fobbed off the question on Gore.’ So now it was a brilliant strategy to act stupid! It was a brilliant strategy to be uninformed. It was a brilliant strategy to be ignorant on a policy question. Folks, if you ever have any doubts that the Drive-By Media work in concert to maintain and build these people’s images and get them elected, this story alone proves it — and I’ve got another one in here that is going to accomplish the same thing. I actually have a story in this stack by some idiot at Reuters, talking in a marveling and admiring way of all the accomplishments of the Democrat Congress. There aren’t any accomplishments! The minimum wage is it. But this is a piece designed to muddle the minds of people who read Reuters. It’s prop-’em-up time. Anyway, so the bottom line is, Hillary has a paper-thin résumé, and what it means is that Bill’s record is really all she’s got. The Clinton name is all she has. I’ve been making this point. ‘If her name weren’t Clinton, would she even be considered for this on the basis of anything substantive that she has accomplished or achieved?’ The answer is no. Now, she needs to be called on it, and this blogger may be called her on it, called her on some hard questions and so forth. But the Drive-Bys praise her ignorance as a strategy and say that the strategy of having no résumé of her own and then running on her husband’s record, well, ‘it’s a strategy that cuts both ways.’ (Drive-By Media person impression) It might work, we hope it works, but it might not. If it doesn’t work, we’ll be there to help her make it work!

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RUSH: Man, oh, man this is unbelievable, folks, this is — well, I use that word too much. It’s not unbelievable, it’s totally believable. I gotta come up with new words. I use mind-boggling too much, I use amazed too much. Amazing. I have here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers a story from the New York Times November 3rd, 2000, almost seven years ago. If you’re just joining us here, welfare recipient, Medicaid, just getting up, we just had a story from Ron Fournier in the Associated Press, and the lead of the story is, ‘Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is running for president on her husband’s White House record, and it is a strategy that cuts both ways.’ I have here — (laughing) — it’s unbelievable. Adam Nagourney, the New York Times, November 3rd, 2000, seven years ago, headline: ‘Clinton Now Running on Husband’s Record — Moving into the final leg of her campaign for Senate, Hillary Rodham Clinton sprinted from Buffalo to Manhattan to Long Island today, trying to do in New York State what Al Gore has studiously avoided doing across the nation: run on the record of the Clinton administration. Looking fatigued and swigging bottled water to fight a dry cough, Mrs. Clinton disparaged Representative Rick A. Lazio at every opportunity.’ They’re recycling even this story! Running on her husband’s record. She had a paper-thin résumé in 2000, she’s still got a paper-thin résumé. Is there any doubt that the Drive-By — no, there is no doubt that the Drive-Bys are just mouthpieces for the Democrat National Committee. Here’s more proof positive.

This is that Reuters story from Saturday that I was telling you about. Here’s the headline: ‘Congress recesses amid Democratic achievements.’ I mean, this is nothing short of a spoof! You tell a big lie, you tell it often enough, somebody will believe it. I’m not going to read the whole thing to you. The telling part of the story is not what it says about Democrats, it’s what it says about Reuters. ‘After months of being flogged for accomplishing little, Democrats who control Congress headed into a summer recess having passed several high-profile bills from raising the minimum wage to bolstering U.S. security and expanding children’s health care.’ Raising the minimum wage, yip yip, bolstering US security? Bolstering? The Democrats? President Bush, by the way, has shown us how to raise kids. You keep ’em in detention. Congress is a bunch of spoiled brats. He made ’em stay through Saturday. For this to be credited to the Democrats for increasing security is an insult to the intelligence of any citizen in this country who pays even scant attention to what’s going on with this. That’s why I say this is simply the Drive-Bys as mouthpieces for the Democrat National Committee, the Democrats in the House.

‘Much of the Democrats’ progress was incremental and out of the spotlight of the fights with Bush over the Iraq war, now in its fifth year. While those battles were raging, Democrats were able to plow ahead with bills they say will fulfill campaign promises to improve national security and help the neediest.’ I can’t handle anymore, folks, not with this story. On to the audio sound bites. Let’s go to the kook fringe blogger convention that took place in Chicago. By the way, the congressional leadership bailed on this. Rahm Emanuel, Dingy Harry, and Pelosi, they were supposed to participate in a ‘meet the leaders’ panel on Saturday morning at eight, and they bailed. They never even showed up, because they had to stay in Washington. The House was in session, and they had important votes. But it didn’t stop the presidential candidates from showing up.

The Democrats presidential candidates showed up, some of them did. I don’t know how many, but they didn’t go to the Democrat Leadership Council. They’re avoiding all these so-called moderate centrist Democrat organizations. (interruption) No. I was just was asked a question. I sometimes don’t think people realize the full scope and breadth of my talent. Here I am in the middle of a brilliant monologue setting things up, and in the IFB I get a question from Mr. Snerdley, who would only ask the question because he’s confident enough to know that his interruption to me will not take me off track. His question is, ‘Is it safe to say that Mrs. Clinton is running on her husband’s coattails?’ No. That’s not how I would characterize it. She’s running on his zipper. I mean, if you’re going to run on the Clinton administration record, you’re running on his zipper.