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Lanny Davis

Lanny Davis

Posted: March 17, 2008 12:50 PM

The Obama Memo Writer Strikes -- And Is Wrong -- Again: Senator Clinton's Role on the Peace Process in Northern Ireland


Dear Barack Obama campaign,

The author of the "attack Hillary" record memo recently widely distributed by your campaign was, in my opinion, filled with distortions and personal innuendo -- written by someone who was carries "former" titles from Clinton administration only because of the Clintons.

Regarding her role in Northern Ireland in the peace process, which the uninformed memo writer falsely belittles, objective observers should read yesterday's newspaper story from the Scranton Times. Not only does it quote the Irish Prime Minister confirming the important role she played, but many other key Irish leaders.

And as with other members of his campaign who have made false accusations against Senator Clinton, Senator Obama should show the grace and good judgment to repudiate the author of this memo and ask him either to do better research before attacking Senator Clinton again.

The Obama campaign claims George Mitchell, the person in charge of the investigation, supports their view that Hillary's claims about Northern Ireland are exaggerated. John Hume, who won the Nobel Prize for Peace for his work on Northern Ireland:

I can state from firsthand experience that she played a positive role for over a decade in helping to bring peace to Northern Ireland... Anyone criticizing her foreign policy involvement should look at her very active and positive approach to Northern Ireland and speak with the people of Northern Ireland who have the highest regard for her and are very grateful for her very active support for our peace process.

George Mitchell, who is cited in the Obama memo as an authoritative source, told Katie Couric last night that Hillary played "a helpful and supportive role" in Northern Ireland that ended up making "a difference in the process." He described what Hillary has said about her role as "accurate."

More on Hillary's work in Northern Ireland here.

 
 
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HUFFPOST BLOGGER
SamSedaei
08:32 PM on 03/17/2008
Read the last entry in this article: http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10853980

she likes to overplay her role in many of the things from the 90s. It has become somewhat pathological at this point.
08:11 PM on 03/17/2008
As someone who recently returned to the States, after having LIVED in Northern Ireland for a while, I find the notion that Hillary Clinton played a 'central' role in the peace process simply preposterous.
I suppose that, pursuant to the flawed logic of the Clintons and their surrogates, we should now thank Nancy Reagan for ending the Cold War and, in the same vein, celebrate Pat Nixon's 'key' role in initiating US rapprochement with China.

In the REAL world, Hillary's claims are tantamount to resume embellishment, if not outright deception, and the last time that I checked, people were sacked for such malfeasance!

BTW, Lanny, what about the 'crisis management experience' that Mrs Clinton, along with Sinbad, Sheryl Crow and Chelsea, acquired in Kosovo? Now that we know that the whole Northern Irish 'thing' is a 'fairy tale', how about some spin regarding Sinbad's claims that Senator Clinton lied yet again (oops!)?
HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
GnitenGoodLk
02:19 AM on 03/18/2008
I agree. Took generations for Ireland to get there, and it was primarily due to bringing the IRA to the government table after economic havoc from prolonged civil war, opening up commerce (very important to do, that's what stabilizes countries, that's why Iraq is such a tragedy. We can't do that now). I posted on this on the 2nd page of this post. Ireland deserves the credit for handling this situation on her own very well. We just gave business incentives, companies, eased up travel restrictions. All things that are important to keep going.

Establishing this in Iraq though? Impossible for generations to come unless we stabilize them.
07:04 PM on 03/17/2008
There's a clear difference between playing a "supportive" role and a "key" role.

Hillary has been describing her involvement as being a key role.

Even her strongest supporters and well-wishers describe it as a supportive role, at best.

As first lady, that's all one would expect. She should quit trying to put a gloss on her resume.
05:24 PM on 03/17/2008
Hillary Clinton is the fortunate spouse that has flown to 82 countries on the tax payer's dime. So what? She is American royalty; the embodiment of the increasingly disparate American caste system. There's a difference between an elite jet setter and an appointed ambassador that got to their position on account of their foreign policy acumen. Hillary reflexively becomes the sworn enemy of anyone that so much as questions her viewpoint. Who would feel comfortable having her -- the spastic ill-tempered divider and polarizer, all rolled up in one -- negotiate with world leaders?
04:23 PM on 03/17/2008
OMG, this is the guy on CNN that everyone was laughing at because he doesn't answer questions like normal people, he creates other distractions! But we all know better. I AM OUT OF HERE. Later!
04:17 PM on 03/17/2008
"supporting" something isn't experience for the Presidency of the most powerful nation in the world. It just isn't, no matter how you want to spin it. A celebrity visit, bestowed upon her as a privilege by her husband is experience, but not the kind of experience her voters think it is when she claims it.
03:48 PM on 03/17/2008
Oh Lanny,

Do you really enjoy sharing half-truths and transparent lies to snow your fellow Democrats?

Are you really looking forward to four (or eight) more years of this?

Lanny, face facts and put an end to this already.
03:47 PM on 03/17/2008
Certainly helpful to have a Clinton campaign operative give us the official Clinton party line, even if it does have sufficient holes in it to allow every 18-wheeler on the open road free passage through it.

I personally appreciate Mr. Davis's continuing efforts make me ignore what I see and read and to count only on him and his fellow spinsters to let me in on the truthier facts at their disposal.

Got to hand it to Mr. Davis; his strategy of spewing out innuendos, half-truths, distortions, and fact-challenged analysis faster than anyone can counter them lets us all know what to expect in the coming days.
03:34 PM on 03/17/2008
Lanny is an unabashed Clinton ballwasher. I hope that the next blog that he writes he will give Hillary's reasoning for:
voting for the war authorization bill, without reading the NEI Report or the U.N. inspectors reports.
voting against the Levin amendment.
voting against banning the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas.
voting for the Lieberman-Kyl Amendment.
Thirty five years of experience, right!
02:55 PM on 03/17/2008
WHAT did she do? SPECIFICS!

Did she negotiate, arbitrate, or coordinate? No.
Did she make any decisions? Did she contribute any ideas? No.
Did she give a speech to a group of women? Yes. ...Did she organize that group? Nope.

Did they really need her? Nope.
Was it nice to have her company? Yes.
02:55 PM on 03/17/2008
Well maybe she was helpful and supportive in Northern Ireland which of turned out well. Too bad she wasn't so helpful and supportive in her husband's administration in Pakistan. Maybe we wouldn't be in the mess we are now in that part of the world. ( He even admitted at the Children's Millieneum Conference in Montreal last year that his policy in Pakistan was the worst mistake he made in his administration)

it's one thing to claim victory in a peace process that had been evolving for years, where both parties were incredibly tired of 30 years of violence. I wonder if she would also admit that under the Clinton Administration the festering problems in Pakistan went unchecked and paved the way for the impending disaster that Pakistan faces today.

It is a problem for her to link herself to her husband's administration. You get the bad with the good. And the bad in this case may make Jon McCain look good.
02:46 PM on 03/17/2008
"Helpful and supportive". Is that all you need for Foreign Policy experience these days?
02:36 PM on 03/17/2008
The snide innuendos and attacks on HIllary's record bother me. BUT only in one sense. She's accountable for the veracity of her resume. I have no problem with challenging her. But when it's wrapped up in the Republican-type blanket that she's a liar, then I've got a major problem.

Lately, I've seen Obama's own lack of ethics in lying to people, so I assume he thinks that she is equally vulnerable.

She is not.
03:50 PM on 03/17/2008
I'm confused. When Hillary campaigns like a Republican against Obama you're all in favor of it.
12:32 AM on 03/18/2008
Now I'm confused. Who is slapping the other side across the face with accusations of a lack of ethics, withholding tax returns, earmarks, someone else's library donations, playing the race card, spinning every comment into something sinister, etc? Now, those are Republican tactics and Hillary is not the one doing it.
04:08 PM on 03/17/2008
"Annie, Annie, time for supper! Your KoolAid is getting warm!"
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02:34 PM on 03/17/2008
I have found Sen. Clinton's claimed experience to be thin at best. Her account of her work with Sinbad and Cheryl Crow in a "dangerous" war zone was full of exaggeration. Her claims to have been "instrumental" in the peace process in Ireland are not supported by these quotes. Her claims to have opened a border that was already open, are again, blown out of proportion. This is part of the problem that I have with her as a woman and as a candidate. As a woman I find her claiming credit for her husband's job, and calling that "experience," to be demeaning and insulting to her accomplishments. Her tendency to exaggerate her role in foreign policy matters is cause for great concern to me, because I would really like a woman to be president and her chances in the general shrink every time she acts like foreign policy experience is a strength of hers and her claim is found to be thin. She was not privy to all of the crisis situations in the Clinton years because she didn't have a top security clearance. She cannot compete with Sen. McCain on the playing field that she's setting up for herself. She seems to want the American public to confuse familiarity with experience. As though all of those years that we "experienced" her in the public eye are what count, not what she was actually doing. I would love to see those White House records of her time as First Lady, that would likely clear up some of the confusion about her role, which I have no doubt was quite respectable. I am a very helpful spouse when it come to my husband's business concerns and he often comes to me for advice, but I would never claim his accomplishments, just as he wouldn't claim mine when he helps me to solve a problem. Ultimately, whoever makes the decision has to take the credit or blame, regardless of who advises them. NONE of the candidates has had to answer the phone at 3AM and her claim to be most qualified to do so, puts the yardstick that most suits John McCain on the table. Short-sighted tactics do not win my confidence.
anon004
With this moniker, you were expecting a picture?
02:28 PM on 03/17/2008
Mr. Davis - This memo writer who put out this supposedly untrue information, he wouldn't be Canadian or have anything to do with NAFTA, would he? After some of the shenanigans from the campaign of the candidate you support, I wouldn't put it past them to have written this memo themselves and then tried to pin it on Obama's campaign so Hillary could look like a victim, yet again.

In any case, Hillary's so-called experience is pretty slim. Her candidacy is the ultimate in affirmative action -- she is where she is because of who she married. Just because she cut a deal with him to put up with his infidelities so she could be president doesn't mean that the rest of us who weren't in the room have to go along with it. She's not entitled to the Presidency of the United States because she allowed herself to be victimized by her husband. Why doesn't she just get out now, before she destroys the Democratic Party? Or is her sense of entitlement too strong for that?