<p>"Here’s Hillary’s body of work as a US Senator. It suggests that either she’s lazy or was afraid to commit to significant legislation.</p>
<p>Senator Clinton, who has served only one full term (6yrs.), and another year campaigning, has managed to author and pass into law, (20) twenty pieces of legislation in her first six years.These bills can be found on the website of the Library of Congress (<a href=“http://www.thomas.loc.gov)%5B/url%5D”>www.thomas.loc.gov)</a>, but to save you trouble, I’ll post them here for you.
Establish the Kate Mullany National Historic Site.
Support the goals and ideals of Better Hearing and Speech Month.
Recognize the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
Name courthouse after Thurgood Marshall.
Name courthouse after James L. Watson.
Name post office after Jonn A. O’Shea.
Designate Aug. 7, 2003, as National Purple Heart Recognition Day.
Support the goals and ideals of National Purple Heart Recognition Day.
Honor the life and legacy of Alexander Hamilton on the bicentennial of his death.
Congratulate the Syracuse Univ. Orange Men’s Lacrosse Team on winning the championship.
Congratulate the Le Moyne College Dolphins Men’s Lacrosse Team on winning the championship.
Establish the 225th Anniversary of the American Revolution Commemorative Program.
Name post office after Sergeant Riayan A. Tejeda.
Honor Shirley Chisholm for her service to the nation and express condolences on her death.
Honor John J. Downing, Brian Fahey, and Harry Ford, firefighters who lost their lives on duty.
Extend period of unemployment assistance to victims of 9/11.
Pay for city projects in response to 9/11.
Assist landmine victims in other countries.
Assist family caregivers in accessing affordable respite care.
Designate part of the National Forest System in Puerto Rico as protected in the wilderness preservation system.</p>
<p>This is not a distinguished legislative record, and is certainly not presidential material. Where is the bold, important legislation? Where is the health care legislation? Hillary has had over 12 years to work on health care. Where are the results?"</p>
<p>mini: thanks for the list. I wonder what McCain’s list looks like. I imagine he has managed to get a bunch of laws enacted. But then he has been around in the Senate for about 200 years or so, hasn’t he.</p>
<p>Both Hillary and Obama had the disadvantage of being in the minority party until last year when they got a wafer-thin majority and a still hostile President. Tough to get anything passed from your side of the aisle.</p>
<p>mini,
That’s a good summary of Hillary’s post First Lady experience.</p>
<p>What qualifications did she have to give the voters confidence that she could handle the First Lady Duties? SS was questioning whether Mrs. Obama was ready for “First Lady” duties.</p>
<p>I have no idea what the qualifications for the First Lady job would entail.
Come to think of it, would Bill Clinton have the necessary requirements to perform First Lady duties? </p>
<p>I wonder if Hillary’s campaign is going to criticize her for lifting John Edward’s line about illegal immigration and Blockbuster w/o giving him credit?</p>
<p>But let’s look at what she DID do during her time in the Senate, aside from voting for war and the aggressive, hostile occupation without bothering to read the classified national intelligence report in her possession, and then going to the Pork Zone in 2005 and praising the occupation?</p>
<p>She raised about $200 million for yourself from corporate lobbyists and the like to fund her Senate campaign and her Presidential ambitions, and perhaps $100 million more for her Democratic colleagues. She went out to promote her memoir Living History while ignoring the business of state. She went on junkets. </p>
<p>What else is there other than planning and plotting her Presidential run?</p>
<p>I know nothing about Mrs. McCain, but I haven’t yet heard any foot in the mouth statements. And as for First Hubby candidate Bill, did you hear him the other day say “Vote for me” instead of vote for Hillary? Pretty funny stuff.</p>
<p>If my son had done what Obama did he would have gotten a “O” on his speech or paper. I guess Obama did this when he was in college and law school, and got away with it.</p>
<p>A political speech is very different from an academic paper.<br>
Try to read aloud a piece of academic writing, bibliographical references, footnotes and all! "As FDR said in his 1933 Inaugural address, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” (insert citation here) Is not going to go over as well as the plain quotation.</p>
<p>It has been shown that not only politicians repeat themselves ( to stay “on message”) they also borrow freely from one another either in a straightforward manner, or to challenge and question or to parody. Deval Patrick’s Together We Can slogan has been morphed for the better into Yes We Can. Many lines have been appropriated from rivals or from past political figures because they resonate with listeners, and the reason they resonate is familiarity.</p>
<p>Most people expect political figures to have speechwriters. Sorensen was the chief speech-writer for JFK. Peggy Noonan was speechwriter for Reagan and was responsible for some of the most memorable lines uttered by Reagan. The son of a good friend of mine was a speechwriter for Bill Clinton (he had several). Obama has a 20 something speechwriter who has said that it is a challenge to write speeches for someone who is as good a writer as Obama and that his job is basically to shape speeches to sound like Obama’s written word.</p>
<p>AMom, you would have to award that same “zero” to every political candidate since, probably, Eisenhower. None of them writes their own speeches. And none of them credits their ghost writers while on the stump.:rolleyes:</p>
<p>As I wrote in post#77
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<p>This teapot tempest is a pretty thin criterion for making such a assumptive leap.</p>
<p>“None of them writes their own speeches. And none of them credits their ghost writers while on the stump.”</p>
<p>Neither do most evening news reporters. Sometimes there are credits at the end of the program naming the newswriters; sometimes there are not. But it’s an acceptable convention in journalism that the Ted Koppels of the world don’t have to write every word they speak, and they don’t have to mention their team of staff writers after every pithy comment. This is no secret and no big deal.</p>
<p>From 1998 NY Times report: “Mr. Biden dropped out of the Democratic Presidential race last September after admitting that he had used speeches by Mr. Kinnock and other politicians without attribution, and after published reports that he had plagiarized while in law school.”</p>
<p>CGM – It’s wasn’t just one sentence. It was an entire speech. And a hackneyed one, at that! I’m actually surprised that a high level political campaign would turn out a speech worthy of a middle schooler & then an even higher level campaign would recycle it. Gosh, where are the Peggy Noonans & Ted Sorrensons of today? </p>
<p>Marite, the plagiarism claim isn’t being made because of the unattributed JKF, MLK, & FDR quotes. They are so overused that there is hardly a person alive who doesn’t recognize them. Nor is it because Obama, like every other modern politician, uses speechwriters who are never attributed. The plagiarism refers to the virtually identical speech given by Patrick not long ago. Chances are Obama never know it was a recycled speech, so I’m not going to lose sleep over this.</p>
<p>I actually think he knew they had been used by Deval Patrick. They’re good friends, besides sharing the same campaign manager, so I would expect that he would know some of the more effective lines used by Patrick. Should he have found a way of acknowledging his debt to Patrick? I think yes. Is it a cardinal sin that he did not? Don’t think so. In fact, in NH, in a much less formal speech, he mentioned borrowing lines from Patrick (but not those). It’s easier to say so when one is talking off the cuff than when one is trying for a stemwinder.</p>
<p>CNN exit polls: Obama takes 61% of men and 51% of women. Not projecting a winner yet, so I guess it won’t be a huge lead like Maryland/Virginia.</p>
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