In this AP story, Hillary says, "What they[Rove and Bush]'re hoping is that all of their missteps, which are now numbering in the hundreds, are going to somehow be overlooked because people, instead of focusing on the '06 election, will jump ahead and think about the next one." Righteous italic emphasis mine.
Hundreds, Madame Senator? Hundreds of missteps?! Come on! Fives or tens, maybe. Dozens at a stretch. But you can't just throw out a tantalizingly vague number like "hundreds" and expect people to accept that -- not in this blog-smart age, no sirree Robert!
"Hundreds?" We demand a recount! Sorry. Reflex. We demand a count!
So we at the Huffington Post (which is to say "I at the Huffington Post") decided to look at the Bush White House's real record of missteps to prove this congenital, Clintonian exaggerator's claims are just a hill of beans. Project "Hundreds My Ass" was launched (and dissolved) this morning. Here is its final report.
The Bush Administration's missteps (fatalities only, not counting the murder penalty, which Hillary also favors):
1-9. Letting political donors steer the submarine
10-3,061. Every comfy nap between August 6 ("Bin Laden Determined to Strike In US") and September 11
3,062-5,560. US soldiers killed since "...the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" (note: this number is only a snapshot in this ongoing misstep)
5,561-Anybody's guess, but let's be neo-conservative and say another 1,000 in the Gulf Coast (hey, some of 'em probably died of natural causes) for 6,561. "Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?"
6,562-35,097 (Iraq Body Count) or 106,562 (Red Cross study estimate, midpoint). "We don't do [civilian] body counts."
35,098-45,660,098. Estimated number of people worldwide killed by unsafe drinking water alone during the Bush Administration's war on the environment. (Though since most of these fatalities were current or former African and Asian babies, Bill Bennett might make the argument that if they'd lived, they would have been criminals.)
So, OK, Hillary's "hundreds" is fair, particularly if we give her a little wiggle room to include not-immediately-lethal missteps like repeatedly compromising national security for politics and siphoning billions of tax dollars into Bush's buddies' pockets. We stand corrected and apologize to Ms. Clinton for any inconvenience.