Clinton Quiet About Her Own Radical Ties

When Hillary Rodham Clinton questioned rival Barack Obama's ties to 1960s radicals, her comments baffled two retired Bay Area lawyers who knew Clinton in the summer of 1971 when she worked as an intern at a left-wing law firm in Oakland, Calif., that defended communists and Black Panthers.

"She's a hypocrite," Doris B. Walker, 89, who was a member of the American Communist Party, said in an interview last week. "She had to know who we were and what kinds of cases we were handling. We had a very left-wing reputation, including civil rights, constitutional law, racist problems."

Malcolm Burnstein, 74, a partner at the firm who worked closely with Clinton during her internship, said he was traveling in Pennsylvania in April when Clinton attacked Obama for his past interactions with William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, members of Students for a Democratic Society who went on to found the bomb-making Weather Underground.

"Given her background, it was quite hypocritical," Burnstein said. "I almost called the Philadelphia Inquirer. I saw what she and her campaign were saying about Ayers and I thought, 'Well, if you're going to talk about that totally bit of irrelevant nonsense, I'll talk about your career with us.' "

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[Mirri]

If Hillary is not on the ticket with Obama, I am going to "girlcott" this election.

[fungeezer]

If you read this entire article, you should realize several things. For one thing, you should know that the Barack Obama campaign most certainly has all this information. Secondly, it must be noted that the Obama campaign, to their credit, did not use this information to smear Hillary.

[kira181]

How would it smear her?

[kiga]

Clinton haters are really getting desperate here; Obama is losing by 42% in West Virginia and the story is that Hillary Clinton interned in an Oakland law firm that was leftist!! Well I live in Oakland, the air in Oakland is even leftist!! Clinton haters are really getting pathetic now and huffy is becoming more of a platform not for real journalism but a gossip news website. Huffy get with it. Report how Clinton has more votes than Obama, but is being forced out of the race and why!

[Felicty]

Her radical past? What did she do; change the part in her hair in 1973?

[kira181]

The Weather Underground was not representative of 60's protest groups. In no way, were bombs condoned or encouraged. Many -- no, most people -- on the left were disgusted by the WU tactics. Bernstein and company need to go to the Venn Diagram of the Left and and rethink their stories. They are relying on no one else doing this.

[RichLiberal]

Good point. One aspect of this primary season is that it has become clear what depths the Democratic Leadership have been willing to go and to what an extent they have been willing to put their faith in Obama no matter what troubling facts have emerged about his background and associations.

I don't know the details but it sounds like Ayers has been a long term Obama friend and has a background as a bomb setting 60s radical, who never was brought to justice. Note that back in those days, the FBI infiltrated radical groups with rabble rousers who actually created more violence than the groups they infiltrated. Sort of like the "infiltration" of these so-called terrorist groups in the US that were ballyhooed as this huge threat when in reality they were dumb impoverished souls just looking for someone to please.

Combine that with Rev Wright and Wright's admiration for Farrakhan who as much as has admitted to ordering the murder of Malcolm X and one has to wonder exactly what kind of person Obama really is.

I mean if Hillary is out of the picture and people can stop using Obama as their sword for hating Hillary, what are we going to find? I don't know, but I think it is certainly fair to ask. Up until now, I have only been supporting Hillary and responding to the Obama campaign at face value, but one does have to wonder what path these desparateHillaryHaters have led us down.

[ohmercy]

This is very odd.
I know I just read (within a month or so) another article all about this and the tone was completely different. Interviews with the same people talking about her work with that firm.

WTF is up with that?

So what? she doesn't talk about her job at a law firm? What?
Neither does the himself.

[Jaradan]

In Carl Bernstein's biography on Hillary, he describes Hillary purposely chasing the job in the Oakland firm BECAUSE of it's radical left-wing cases. She should just own it instead of trying to pretend it didn't happen.

[bryand1]

Well, if you actually read this posting, you'll see she was an intern, not an associate. What hogwash. What typical huffpost/obama camp hogwash. She was an intern - she didn't work for the firm. She didn't choose the cases or influence the direction of the firm. Hogwash. Thanks Huffpost for continuing to keep things divisive.

[fungeezer]

It's the "guilt by association" theme. That's what the Obama innuendos were about, and that argument cuts both ways.

[Jaradan]

You sound ridiculous. So an internship with a law firm is a weaker connection than Obama living in the same city as Ayers? Hillary's a hypocrite. Plain and simple.

[jsarets]

Yeah, and Ayers never had any advisory role or policy influence with Obama, but that didn't stop the Clinton campaign from playing the politics of association. You're absolutely correct that associating Hillary with the views of certain legal clients from the 70s is patently absurd. That's why the Obama campaign never pushed this story, and that's why it's disappointing that the Clinton campaign pushed Ayers.

[WasteNJ]

I'd have more respect for her if she actually talked about this part of her past as a positive, instead of conforming to the now popular "conservative" mentality and trying to smear her opponent with similar things. If the Black Panther party was still around, she'd be trying to link Obama to them instead of helping defend them. Calling a person a hypocrite is redundant when they are already considered a liar.

[Jaradan]

I appreciate what the Black Panthers did in the 70's. They helped get traffic lights on intersections where neighborhood kids were getting ran over. And they helped keep some of the drug flow out of the black communities. They also helped black people fight back against racism. When I first read about Hillary campaigning to get that internship, I respected her more. But now she's trying to act like her radical days a.) didn't exist and b.) if they did exist, that they weren't as "bad" as Obama knowing a guy who bombed a building when Obama was 8 years old. *eye roll* She is too pathetic for words.

[scorpioleidy]

Call Obama for America @ 866-675-2008 and let them know you don't want Hillary Huckabee on the Obama ticket.

[ohmercy]

God forbid!
The last thing I want is for Hillary Clinton to have that albatross around her neck for the next 4 to 8 years as her career comes to a close. Damn, thanks, but no thanks.

I would like to see her as AG since she is the only one with the cajones to go after the current criminals. I doubt very, very highly that Obama would allow it though./

we are united, we are not going to fight the fights of the past, we are going to move past partisanshiop, we are going to let the criminals get away with treason because we want to make nice and unite the country and make everybody like us.

good luck with that.

[pupbayer]

Please understand we Clinton supporters don't want her on the ticket either. When he loses the general election, which I hope he doesn't but am afraid he will, I don't want her being on the ticket blamed. I want him to have to find another scapegoat.

[ohmercy]

pupbayer... it won't matter, it will still be Hillary's fault.
No matter what happens it's Hillary's fault.
The far right wingnuts used to blame Bill for everything. No matter what new calamity sturck from the idiot king's insanity the answer was always... "Well Bill Clinton..."
It's the same here.
Haven't you noticed that no matter what the story, what the thread somehow it is an opportunity to blame Hillary for something?
The article may not even mention Clinton, may not even be political but there you will find it, a Huffbama Oist Obama fan blaming Hillary for something.
Here is a great example:

http://tinyurl.com/56vnrk

Sex-Starved Women: America's Best Kept Secret?

"American women are a turn off. A great example is Hillary. Why on earth would any man want a relationship with someone like her? American women, in their quest for "equality" have lost their way. I don't blame anyone for trying to get ahead, but many men feel emasculated ..."

Seriously? I kid you not.

It's Hillary's fault they feel emasculated and impotent.
Actually I have long suspected there were cultural, societal, and psychological "dysfunction" issues in the over the top hillary hate.

Hillary is responsible for all the sins of the world and the great redeemer is coming to save us.
Damn, does it get any more mythic than this?

[bigbingtheory]

And what on earth would make you think, if he can beat the CLintonpolitical machine, that he will lose int the general election?

[Oldtt]

The general election doesn't consist of a mishmash of open and closed primaries and caucuses, state electors are awarded winner-take-all, and last but not least the majority of voters are not Dem liberals. Other than that, Obama should sail thru.

[syrupcore]

If I had known she help defend panthers, I might have voted for her.

[pupbayer]

You can relax. She didn't defend Black Panthers. She was at the Bobby Seale trial as a student monitor for the ACLU.

[syrupcore]

I think you're missing my point. I WOULD have voted for her if I thought there was something decent and apolitical about her past: like defending the rights of the Black Panthers. Seeing as that's political suicide, that would have taken quite a bit of bravery to step up to and she would have had to believe in it. I reckon.

[waynesmyer]

But! But! In Arkansas, Hilliary defended a man who had raped an 11- year- old girl! and she got him off! But at leasT she didn't pardon a killer-rapist in Arkansas, like The Huck did! Right?lCHECK IT OUT!

[omahkohkiaayo]

I am no Hillary supporter for sure. And I for one do not thinik Hillary was being hypocritical about not dicussing her past radical associations and dalliances because I suspect that those associations, like her present ones, were mere props and stepping stones in her megalomaniacal "upward" climbing and not intended to be serious or sustained.

But in her defense, all accused persons have a right to legal representation and the burden of proof is on the prosecution for good reasons. Thus she did not "get some guilty person off", as guilt is established by trials not before them or a-priori, what happened is that the prosecution failed to make a prima facie case against the accused.

Does that mean that guilty people do not go free, and that his legal system, with a focus on adversarial games and winning, and not finding truth, does not assist the wealthy, connected and best repesented to get off? No. When one is found not guilty it does not mean the person actually did not do the crime just as if a person is found guilty it does not mean that the person actually did the crime. It only means that the prosecution did or did not make a prima facie case sustained by judicial findings by a jury or judge.

[realtalk]

Not only did Hilaary Clinton defend a child rapist, but Hillary Clinton attacked the credibility of the 12 year rape victim. Court records show, that Hillary questioned the sixth grader's honesty. Hillary even went as far as to imply that the girl often fantasized and sought out "older men" like Taylor (the man Hillary was defending)

All this information is included in the court affidavit signed "Hillary D. Rodham" (Hillary's name before she got married)

[Moose49]

Personally, I could care less about this.

I just wish this had come out the same day Stephadiculous (or was it Gibson?) asked Obama that moronic question about Ayers. It would have actually been relevant then. And it would have boomeranged and exposed her self-righteous hypocrisy.

Today, though, so what? Obama's won, Clinton's lost, arguments about who did what in the '60s and early '70s are irrelevant anyway.

[realtalk]

I can't believe that you still don't realize that most of the mainstream media were doing all they could to get Obama out of the race, and yes I do believe it was about Obama's color.
I have never in my life seem such one sided attack, and smear job reporting in my life geared specifically toward one particular candidate. It is truly amazing that Obama managed to make it to the end.

[ohmercy]

WHAT???
What media have you been watching?
Lord have mercy, there must be some kind of hallucinogenic in that kool aid girlfriend.

[pupbayer]

Shirley Chisholm said she was always discriminated against more as a woman than as an AA. Ask Hillary how it went for her.

[JMBrodie]

Yeah, those were white women hanging from trees back in the day.....

Now can we stop trying to play this game of who had it worse? Racism and sexism and homophobia all should stop. All are bad. All are a waste of time.

Or am I missing something?

[Dachozen1]

NOUCAT:

If you want to switch parties based on your emotional attachment to a person instead of the Demo movement, then it shows your selfishness. I am tired of people's feelings we have to cater to or they are voting for the other side. If you claim to be an American and your beliefs side with the Demo party, switching means you are putting your selfish emotions over your children's future. That speaks volumes about you. You may not like Obama but McCain's views are a far cry from a Democrat. Obama and Clinton's both have very similar policies.

[johnqdemocrat]

It has been proven that the "uneducated" continually vote against their own interests. People like noucant might have been to school, been until they become knowledgeable in the full political process, they will continue to be duped by the MSM and candidates who talk out of the side of their neck.

[bentenrai]

Noucant is just one of those people seeking attention, period. Just look at the profile.

[ebanks84]

I see everybody is coming out NOW with their Clinton "dirty truths" and I must say, it's kind of too late don't you think. I didn't see any of this when she was running "full blown" and dogging Obama to the nth degree. I wonder why?

She's totally lost now. Do we need to bury her alive? It's over for her. It's been over. There are books and videos ONLINE that tells her dirty deeds but her supporters acted as though they knew nothing. Why beat a dead horse now?

I wonder?

[egal]

Because of the naive hope that her most extreme supporters can nevertheless be wooed to the "look at the candidates and their policies instead of voting based on their gender and how their victory would make YOU feel" side.

[cthomp7280]

It's a non-issue when it comes to Hillary because the sun is setting on that campaign. Bringing up any info like this on Sen. Clinton is akin to pushing a retarded child out of his wheelchair...it serves no purpose other than an excercise in dominance.

[Ariesjill]

I disagree. I think it's a NUCLEAR issue which needs addressing domestically and cross culturally. I'ts about core values and how they are conceived and gestated; It's about the difference between making a real journey to illumination and maturity organically, versus moving goal posts arbitrarily & capriciusly to implement personal greed and ambition.

We are meant to learn invaluable things from this and it is meant to transform us importantly.

[riverhouse]

We're wasting time here. We all know Hillary is a hypocrite. We all know this part of her history. We all know about Bill Clinton's pardons. There's no point beating a dead horse. This campaign is over and we need to act like it. Obama has won. Let's encourage HuffPost to focus on the general election so we can sharpen our skills against McCain. Hillary is old news. It's time to ignore her and move on to the general election.