Hannity falsely claimed Clinton "blamed" Bush for mugging of 101-year-old woman
On the March 13 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity falsely claimed that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) said during a March 13 speech that the recent "mugging of a 101-year-old should be blamed on the Bush administration's cuts for community policing programs." In fact, there is no indication that Clinton attributed the March 4 attack on a 101-year-old Queens, New York, woman to President Bush. As co-host Alan Colmes pointed out later in the program, Clinton noted the mugging as an example of why, she said, people are "feeling unsafe again in [their] communities" and highlighted the need to make "crime reduction a No. 1 objective" and "reinstate and fund the COPS [Community Oriented Policing Services] program."
Hannity made his comment about Clinton during a discussion with Republican strategist Mary Matalin and also cited a March 14 New York Daily News article on the incident that mentioned Clinton's speech. He went on to describe Clinton as "basically blaming Bush for cuts to community policing programs," which "le[d], you know, to this incident."
But contrary to Hannity's claim, Clinton did not indicate that the Bush administration's "cuts to community policing programs" led to the mugging. Following is the portion of Clinton's speech at the National League of Cities 2007 Annual Congressional City Conference during which she brought up the incident:
CLINTON: This is about not only the victims of crime and their families. It is about people feeling unsafe again in our communities; people who are afraid to let their kids go outside and play; seniors who lock themselves in afraid to go anywhere -- we had a horrible mugging the other day in New York City. A 101-year-old woman in her walker was attacked in an elevator [sic]. Now, she was pretty feisty, and she just showed great New York resilience and basically got the guy to run off because she was able to prevent him from taking advantage of her -- but that was on the front page of our papers.
Imagine how that makes every widow living alone, every older person, everybody -- we've got to go back to making crime reduction a No. 1 objective in our country and that means we've got to reinstate and fund the COPS program so we put more police on the streets.
In the Daily News article, Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, said of Clinton's comments: "It's unfortunate that Hillary Clinton is trying to score cheap political points off the mugging of an elderly woman."
From the March 14 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:
HANNITY: Well, New York's junior senator is also making waves today with the claim that the mugging of a 101-year-old should be blamed on the Bush administration's cuts for community policing programs. Joining us now, former adviser to Vice President Cheney, Mary Matalin is with us.
You know, Mary, let me tell you --
MATALIN: It's silly season. I mean, there's just this -- all of today's above topics fall under silly season, don't they?
HANNITY: There are a lot of -- a lot of it does, but, you know, it's fascinating to me. No one can deny her husband is a masterful politician, I think. He's smooth. Whatever those gifts are, you know, everyone tells you that has met him, you're the only person that exists when you meet him. She's shrill. She's angry. She's reactive to Barack Obama. She can't seem to get her footing. Why not?
MATALIN: Well, she's not him, but that's cool, OK? I'm not James. You're not your wife. She has considerable political skills of her own, and they are mighty, believe me, and conservatives should not underestimate them.
What was odd about this burst was, it's not politically smart. If we know something or anything about this political environment, it's that people want -- they don't want that sort of political diatribe anymore, and they want to look forward. They want to turn the page. They want something fresh.
Her political liability right now is not that her skills are comparative to her husband's necessarily, but that she's not fresh. She's not the fresh thing. She's not the new thing. So, by bringing up these old, ancient, and the negative kind of politics that people eschew in this environment, it's just -- it's not smart politics. I don't understand it.
HANNITY: You know something, Mary? We're now at the stage where, you know, not only is Bush wrong on everything, he's responsible for anything that goes wrong. You know, Hillary's statement is quoted in the Daily News today, you know, basically blaming Bush for cuts to community policing programs leading, you know, to this incident.
[...]
COLMES: This Daily News article, I saw nothing in there that blamed Bush. What I read was that Hillary Clinton said that she can imagine how the mugging of a 100-year-old woman makes every older person make everybody feel, and she said we have to get back to making crime reduction a number-one objective. Help me understand where the president was blamed here, because I didn't see that.
MATALIN: Because, obviously implicit in that is that it's not been a key objective of this administration -- and it has been -- and there's been increased funding, and, indeed, the data shows that crime has gone down consistently over the five or six years that --
COLMES: She never said anything to the contrary.
MATALIN: With all that data --
COLMES: She said: "Let's help make crime reduction a number-one objective." And you're taking -- they're so sensitive in the Bush administration that, somehow, it's perceived that that's a slight against Bush.
Well, we do know that Newt Gingrich literally blamed liberals for the death of Susan Smith's children, ignoring the fact that she had been molested by her Republican stepfather.
Don't forget how gays and the ACLU were responsible for 9/11.
What? As much as I do not like the ACLU, I would not blame it on them. I would go directly to the source. GWB.
It was Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson who blamed 9/11 on gays and the ACLU. I think Falwell later "apologized."
Evil, what do you dislike most about the ACLU?
he hates the part where they defend the Constitution, you know that quaint piece of paper
I had to ask. The ACLU, much like Nancy Pelosi, Unions, Non-religious people, Peace, they all elicit such instant hateful reactions from conservatives, but never include any reasons why. I guess the media says to ahte them, that's enough.
I didn't get an answer here, but to be fair, the poster may not have seen my question.
It was a slam, deserved or not, against the current administration. Colmes' summary at the end is vastly different from what Mrs. Clinton said - Colmes said "Let's help make crime reduction a number one objective.......Clinton actually said "...to go back and make crime reduction a number one objective".
"Go back" certainly implies a lack of such an effort currently. Now she may be right or wrong, but it was a dig at Bush, nonetheless.
Hannity falsely claimed nothing here.
I don't think the point of the thread was whether or not it was a slam. Hannity suggested Hillary had blamed Bush for the mugging. That's a stretch. It may have been a dig as you suggest but it doesn't live up to Hannity's billing.
Well, this thread says "But contrary to Hannity's claim, Clinton did not indicate that the Bush administration's cuts to community policing programs led to the mugging".
She most definitely made the connection with her "go back" and "reinstate" terminology. In this day and age of calculated political speaking, especially by a presidential candidate, she knew exactly the impression she wanted to leave - she didn't have to use the word "blame", she couldn't use the word "blame"......and she knew it. So she craftily said it the way politicians always do.
she couldn't use the word "blame"......and she knew it.
Why can't she use the word "blame"? She blames the Bush administration for the Iraq all the time.
I am talking about this specific incident. She couldn't outright blame Bush for this woman's mugging, she would look foolish.......but she wanted to politicize it against him, and she did.
It's implied?! Come on. Hannity's claim is pretty straight forward. The mugging was Bush's fault?!? That is a leap, a gross over simplification. Colmes is right too. The White House is way to sensitive.
I am talking about this specific incident. She couldn't outright blame Bush for this woman's mugging, she would look foolish.......but she wanted to politicize it against him, and she did.
You did a lot of mind reading there.
I agree Tommy
It was implied.
One doesn't always need to say a NAME out loud for everyone to know whom is being targeted.
Exactly, politicians are very careful not to be too specific but their speech writers are experts at leaving an impression in listeners minds without getting themselves into hot water........that's what they're paid to do, and they do it well.
Good for Hannity, (in this one case), for calling her on it.......maybe before their slick words are spoken next time with some "I never said that........!!!", they will know the media won't join in on their semantics circus.
You have to put a lot of words in her mouth to match Hannity's charge. Of course things can be implied and are all the time but I don't see the direct connection Hannity is making. Hannity is aying that this mugging specifiaclly is being blamed on Bush by Clinton because she makes a comment about going back to a better crime policy. That's not even close.
In political doublespeak spoken by a deft politician, it's razor thin.
If you mine for data, you can strike fool's gold.
I am not sure if Senator Clinton was linking Bush to this poor womens attack, but Keith Olbermann on Monday did so. And I agreed 100% with him.
OLBERMANN: The numbers from 2006 are in and the Police Executive Research Forum, led by some of the nation‘s top chiefs and partially funded by the Justice Department says 2005 was no fluke. In our number two story tonight, violent crime is roaring back. Following nearly a decade of decline, violent crime bottomed out after the year of 2000, at the lowest levels in a generation. From 1993 to 2000, Washington spent about a billion dollars a year funding local police. The current administration has cut that funding, down to less than one percent. And now virtually every category is rising, murder, rape, assault included. If dry numbers do not concern you, consider the current case in New York City, complete with the kind of disturbing details all too familiar to those who recall what the city used to be like, and also the disturbing idea that a thief deliberately sought out elderly woman to rob and then beat up. Our correspondent is Dawn Fratangelohttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17594715/
Tommy,
I watched a segment last night on CNN. There was a criminolgist providing expert interpretation of the newly released crime stats. He blamed the RISE in violent crime partly on the increased number of teens in the population and he says these teens have become more they have become more violent. This coupled with a reduction in funds for community policing programs which has resulted in a 10 % decrease in the number of street cops. You and I both know he nor Clinton was blaming Bush directly for this poor woman's beating. All I know is Bill Clinton increased funds for community policing and there was a steady decrease in the number of street crimes and King George for whatever reason decreased the funding. I thought Republicans were supposed to be pro law and order???
Lynn,
I watched the same guy on Anderson Cooper for about two minutes until he basically blamed the NRA for the uptick in violence......now I no fan of the NRA, but that assertion left me shaking my head - so I flipped the channel.
"I thought Republicans were supposed to be pro law and order???"
They are, so long as the NRA is there to make sure Republicans have the high-powered, high-capacity assault weapons necessary to take it into their own hands.
HANNITY: You know something, Mary? We're now at the stage where, you know, not only is Bush wrong on everything, he's responsible for anything that goes wrong.
Wow, I'll give credit where it's due; that's the most intelligent thing I've ever seen come out of Hannity's mouth.
Sorry, Rusty, I have to score this one for HBlefty. Although hannity and intelligent together is an obvious oxymoron.
PS to MMFA, how about a spell checker for the doltish posters like me?
Thanks for the backup, Pit
1. "most intelligent" is a very conditional and relative compliment towards Hannity.
2. Wild-eyed rebel mavericks don't care about The Man and his fascist "spelling rules".
Pith, HBL kicks comedy ass on a regular basis, and I bow to him.
As for spelling, try using the latest version of Mozilla Firefox for your browser. Built in spell-check that underlines misspelled words, like Word does.
Noone's pointing out that community policing is a local matter, outside the province of responsibility of US Senators or Presidents. Federal micromanagement of local policing was most evident during Bill Clinton's "drug war" operations, in which the DoJ was using asset forfeiture as a way to bribe local police forces to ignore State laws regarding seizures of property and to get themselves a 20% cut of the action.
Just another example of Hillary's Federalism. To her and the rest of the Federalists, DC must rule all, be all, control all. State and local governments are just there to carry out the Federal commandments. No such thing as local democracy or local initiative in the Federalist playbook, it's ALL "national" and ONLY "national". The one ring to bind them principle.
Centralization of power is never a good thing. It's why we fought the Revolution....we were being micromanaged from Whitehall in 1776, all for the profit of the micromanagers and not for the colonists. Now in 2007, DC is doing the same thing.
Redking, taking another opportunity to rant against HRC? In fact you seem to take any opportunity to slam her, Gore or anyone else with a "D" after their name. How come you don't lambast the crime family currently in power? Really, I want to know. Do you honestly think that the current administration is better than what Gore, et al would have provided? Where is your outrage at the current occupants of the WH? I really do want to know. And I don't want a R's and D's are exactly the same argument. It isn't very useful at present and besides I've heard it all before from you. Now please answer the question.
Redking is enthusiastically liberal - perhaps even radical. The dissuasion expressed is probably mostly that HRC is somewhat Corporatist, somewhat Federalist - and neither of those fit well in true liberalism. The only fault I usually find with Redking is that he seems sometimes to want the impractical, occasionally even the impossible, in return for his support. Of course, even *I* yield to the occasional rant about S.C.U.M.*, or MORA; and we know that MORA is unlikely so long as Bungle is President, even were the Senate Repugnants all to be impeached for corruption and obstruction of justice (as opposed to mere obstruction of all that is good).
*S.C.U.M. So-Called Unbiased Media acronym by Easy To Refute Wingnuts
My support goes to people that actually care about the nation and it's future, not to those who vote to cheat, rob, kill and torture at every opportunity. If those are impossible conditions to meet, then the USA is over. You have to demand better, it's our government, we own it. If we keep handing it to those who would destroy it, then that's our fault. I personally refuse to take part in that process and will vote for the good guys out on the fringe instead of the madmen who run the asylum.
I've spent years bashing Republicans online, the orc scum that they are. I just don't give Democrats an automatic pass, especially after watching the Dems throw our Green Party candidates off the ballot here in Pennsylvania. What I hate about Democrats is that they are Republicans. They are the same. Same policies, same crimes, same masters, same victims. And when this site whines every time some right-winger complains about Hillary or another right-wing Democrat, I will not defend them. They don't deserve it for what they've been doing to us.
If the Democrat Party runs Kucinich or Feingold for president, begins impeachment proceedings against Bush, throw Israel out of Washington DC and finally give us the kind of government we deserve, then I'll support them. But as long as they collaborate with war crimes, as long as they empower war criminals, as long as they are war criminals themselves...in the words of the motto of the Spanish Republicans in 1933, No Pasaran! They shall not pass!
I wasn't concerned that Red was a Republican. But I find many of his/her arguments as not being rooted in the real, concrete world. It would be nice to wish politics was a different animal. But there IS a difference between the two parties from what I can tell. And the utter insistence that all Dems are as bad as Republicans just doesn't hold water for me. And the Greens DO need to build a party base. I'm entirely sick of Ralph Nader being a spoiler when he doesn't have a ghost of a chance of winning. I'd be willing to have a lottery system and have regular people in these offices that would be just as qualified as the dingbats there right now. You just have to watch CSPAN one time and listen to the dumb speeches to know that we couldn't do any worse with a lottery. But the lottery idea will probably never gain traction as entreched power and money rule the day. Again, I wish it were different, but the real world tells me that even so, Gore would be a heck of a lot better than Bush. For the time being our bastards are a lot better than their bastards IMO.
Redking makes some good theoretical points on this site, but seems to look down from an idealistic position on the more pragmatic posters.
I see our country as divided not in half, (liberal and conservative , as conventional wisdom would have us believe), but into groups separated on principle;
The Republican base-self-described "morals and values" voters, almost completely lacking in principles.
The Democrat base- pretty much lacking in principle as compared to anyone but the Republican base.
Democrat default voters- disgusted by the GOP, disappointed in the Dems, but realistic enough to know that they are the first step toward saving our country.
Super-principled liberals - Pollyannas who are such short term thinkers that they can't muster up a vote for the Democrats, and so put the Repubs in power.
National elections are a survey, an average of this entire nation of (300 million ? how many of us are there now?) and that includes every one-stoplight town with a church, a KKK chapter and a corn silo across the country.
While it may feel good for some thinking voters to mock the least insane party that has a realistic chance at any success, the end result is to put the more insane party in charge.Like dying of thirst while sniffing corks and sending unacceptable wine back to the cellar.
It was the super-radicals like me that made all the GOOD things happen in this country. It's blind party loyalists who keep all the EVIL things happening. It's all a matter of right and wrong. Anyone who votes Democrat or Republican after the last thirty years of illegal wars, declining rights, and the growth of corporate fascism is on the WRONG side of the game. Voting for one of the bad guys just because he isn't the other bad guy don't put the good guys into office.
I'm sorry so many of you don't have the courage to break free from the Democrat mindwash that they're the only alternative. Greens would have that chance to power if people VOTED for them, if they finally voted their conscience and not some hair-brained strategy that putting back the same people that got us into this mess in the first place is gonna work.
I can honestly say that none of this war crime in progress is my fault. I didn't put a single one of those slimeballs into power and I didn't give my vote to the people that are enabling and supporting them in the Senate and House. My conscience is clean, my principles are intact, my code of ethics is upheld. Can you say that?
Gore came from a war criminal administration that sold out the American worker. He's a zionist who supports continued US funding of Israeli war crimes. He would have continued the sanctions and bombings of Iraq for another four years, killing even more children for a racist cause. My vote went to Nader....he makes Gore look like an orc.
I am an informed voter. I know what our politicians actually DO. And what they do offends me greatly. So I do not vote for them.
Sorry, RedKing, but I feel the need to point out that, despite your clean conscience and steadfast principles, your electoral results suck.
A tiny nit, perhaps, but the next electoral surge of the liberals may not actually lie in ensuring the devastations of our nation, and of the aspirations of the people of this nation and earth, that can result from taking your/my personal beliefs to the extreme, without remembering the vast numbers who have not yet realized that we are right, and the right is wrong. So, although I also advocate for Feingold and Kuchinich, I will untimately vote for Edwards, or Obama, or Hillary because I notice that 40% of the electorate view my candidates as outrageous, and an additional 30% believe whatever FoxLies reports. (I advocate for destruction of even the idea that a Corporation is an entity with rights; but vote for those who would merely limit the power of Corporations.)
But giving your vote to those who represent corporate control of the nation is counter-productive. If you want to curb the power of corporate America, you do not vote for thsoe who enable that power and work to increase it. Nader and the Greens would remove the "individual" status of corporations, Democrats will only ask for more money from them in exchange for preferential legislation. So voting for a DLC Dem to end corporate control is like voting to put the fox in charge of the henhouse, instead of the watchdog. It isn't gonna get the desired result.
Typical, These paraniod thumbsuckers can't even read an article in the friggin' paper-ABOUT ANYTHING-without reading some far-lef t agenda into it! Probably some kinda residual guilt for bein' WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING THEY TOUCH OR TALK ABOUT!
V
VERYTHING THEY TOUCH OR TALK ABOUT!
Wow dosboogerz4580, whats up with that?
And please don't "scream" we can all "hear" you just fine.
(Also who are you talking about? "These paraniod thumbsuckers"? Maybe label your replies?)