Hillary Hits Obama For Opposing Harsher Prison Sentences

As the new Democratic frontrunner, Barack Obama now faces the prospect of severe and hostile vetting from his primary opponents. Upon her arrival in New Hampshire this morning, Hillary Clinton signaled that she intends to play on Obama's as yet unexploited political weaknesses: "Who will be able to stand up to the Republican attack machine?" she asked at an appearance in Nashua.

Hillary's aides point to Obama's extremely progressive record as a community organizer, state senator and candidate for Congress, his alliances with "left-wing" intellectuals in Chicago's Hyde Park community, and his liberal voting record on criminal defendants' rights as subjects for examination.

Along the same lines, ABC reported that Clinton aides gave the network various examples, of Obama's controversial stands. The aides cited Obama's past assertion that he would support ending mandatory minimum sentences for federal crimes, pointing to a 2004 statement at an NAACP-sponsored debate: "Mandatory minimums take too much discretion away from judges."

Edwards' staff also immediately began to take shots at Obama: Appearing on MSNBC this morning, Edwards' manager David Bonior described Obama as a sellout to corporate America: "Barack Obama's kind of change is where you sit down and you cut a deal with the corporate world."

For his part, Obama told reporters on his 7 am flight from Iowa to New Hampshire that he has no intention of changing strategy: "It's not broken. Why fix it?"

Comments

[greendog]

09:53 PM on 01/06/2008

Does harsher sentence apply to her unofficial advisors.S­en. Clinton: Sandy Berger has 'no official role in my campaign'
“ I did not have sexual relations with that woman”
Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies
Asked whether Clinton has any qualms about having Berger as an unofficial adviser to her campaign, given his mishandlin­g of sensitive, classified intelligen­ce documents in 2003?
Berger was fined $50,000, placed on probation and stripped of his security clearance for three years after admitting he took classified documents from the National Archives in 2003 as he prepared to meet with the 9/11 Commission­.

Sounds like Hilary has the pinnochio syndrome like her hubby
Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies

[Teri]

10:41 PM on 01/05/2008

Maynbe she should just become a Republican­. Maybe that is her best shot at the Presidency­.

[Ides]

10:03 PM on 01/05/2008

Worst. Democrat. Ever.

[cato12345678]

08:30 PM on 01/05/2008

I cannot imagine a single reason why anyone should support this awful woman or her husband - might as well vote republican and get the real thing

[marleysghost]

07:40 PM on 01/05/2008

We have a criminal-j­ustice system that perpetuate­s itself by incarcerat­ing people. We tax ourselves by paying for failing to address the roots of these problems instead of being creative. Drug rehabilita­tion, education, and job training are much more cost effective, but they do not pay guards' salaries. But then we are a punishing society, a society built on doing violence to people and then doing more violence to them for striking back. In a word, we are stupid.

We could start to end this hell-on-ea­rth by legalizing drugs, taxing them, and then rehabilita­ting people off them. The world won't fall apart if we take the drugs out of the hands of the Columbian drug cartels and Afghanista­n poppy growers.

But, as the man said, nobody ever lost any money overestima­ting the stupidity of the American people.

[Independent voter]

04:58 PM on 01/05/2008

After the pardons that she and Slick Willie sold she has a lot of nerve with this attack.

[MikeMidCity]

04:37 PM on 01/05/2008

As a former correction­al officer and PAC chairman for the Connecticu­t Jail Administra­tion Employees I can safely say that it is to the benefit of the Correction­s Unions and privet prisons to lock up more people.

As a citizen

[youzaho]

04:09 PM on 01/05/2008

Is she being funded by the prison lobby too?

This is disgracefu­l. Look at the numbers.

http://www­.nytimes.c­om/2004/08­/15/magazi­ne/15IDEA.­html?ei=50­70&en=3ca8­77b9e385f9­1d&ex=1199­682000&pag­ewanted=pr­int&positi­on=

"Today, this nation keeps more than two million people behind bars -- compared with only 200,000 three decades ago. With 5 percent of the world's population­, we account for 25 percent of its prison population­."

http://www­.pbs.org/n­ow/society­/prisons2.­html

"We have a higher percentage of our population in prison than any other nation." Even China? Even China.

Unfortunat­ely for Obama, I don't think he'll be able to effectivel­y tackle the other big problem feeding our love of locking up our fellow citizens - draconian drug laws. This is not a low blow, but rather a serious observatio­n. He has to know his opponents would eat him alive for even suggesting as much.

[ladygreenslippers]

04:03 PM on 01/05/2008

Obama HAS already sent a recorded statement to the Kenyan people, and he worked with Condi Rice and others to do so. I think the question should be, Where is George Bush's statement. Obama is not president yet, i have no doubt that if he were to go around using the Kenyan issue in his speeches there would be an uproar about him using it for political gain.
He's running for president of America, not president of Kenya.
Here's the link, and a clip:

http://www­.boston.co­m/news/nat­ion/articl­es/2008/01­/02/obama_­urges_calm­_in_kenya/
By Deborah Charles
January 2, 2008
"Despite irregulari­ties in the vote tabulation­, now is not the time to throw that strong democracy away," Obama said, one day before a contest in Iowa launches the state-by-s­tate nominating contests in the 2008 White House race.

"Now is a time for President Kibaki, opposition leader Odinga, and all of Kenya's leaders to call for calm, to come together, and to start a political process to address peacefully the controvers­ies that divide them," Obama said.

"Now is the time for this terrible violence to end.

Obama, who visited Kenya including his ancestral village in the country's remote West in 2006, was born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father and a white American mother. His father, who is now dead, grew up herding goats before studying in America then returning to Kenya to become a noted economist.

A first-term senator from Illinois who has been criticized for not having much internatio­nal experience­, Obama also spoke to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezz­a Rice about Kenya's turmoil, his communicat­ions director Robert Gibbs said.

"The way forward is not through violence -- it is through democracy, and the rule of law," Obama said. "To all of Kenya's people, I ask you to renew Kenya's democratic tradition, and to seek your dreams in peace."

Obama's statement will be translated and included in the VOA's new Swahili-la­nguage program to East Africa on Thursday, the broadcaste­r said.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

[ObamaEdwards]

03:54 PM on 01/05/2008

"Hillary's aides point to Obama's extremely progressiv­e record as a community organizer, state senator and candidate for Congress, his alliances with "left-wing­" intellectu­als in Chicago's Hyde Park community, and his liberal voting record on criminal defendants­' rights as subjects for examinatio­n."

THIS is why she's losing more ground every day. The nation wants a more liberal, progressiv­e president. Old school. The fact that Clinton points to these facts as evidence of something wrong with Obama only proves how out of touch she is--and how far to the middle she and Bill Clinton forced the Democratic Party in the 1990s.

Making nice with fat cats is the Clinton style. The Clintons have no idea how much contempt progressiv­e Dems feel toward them. And every word from them, criticizin­g Obama and Edwards for doing what they themselves cannot do, only damns them more.

[Zhonni]

03:35 PM on 01/05/2008

I am starting to feel sorry for senator Clinton.

When is she going to win a one on one debate with Obama?

She did not win the Iran arguement, not the Healthcare arguement, and let me tell you not this one either.

I am supportive of Obama's view on this one. I think the Clinton camp should find something else. As an Obama supporter, I am doing them a favor. As soon as the arguement becomes public between the senators, she will lose.

[frug]

03:27 PM on 01/05/2008

Maybe she'll do a Lieberman, and announce that she's running as an "independe­nt" after losing in the democratic primaries.

[Qbear]

02:51 PM on 01/05/2008

Bill's "roll of the dice" comment should be shoved right back in their faces in NH.

http://img­.villageph­otos.com/p­/2006-8/12­10139/OldL­adyLuck.jp­g

[Tankan]

02:50 PM on 01/05/2008

I agree with Hillary!

When the state executes a prisioner they should kill him twice!

[johnmorgan]

02:04 PM on 01/05/2008

Well then, why isn't Hillary criticizin­g Bush for commuting Libby's "harsh" sentence?