In a February 21 guest commentary for the website InsightMag.com, Joseph Beaudoin, described by the website as an “author and former investment banker,” claimed that during her February 1 speech at the Democratic National Committee's Winter Meeting, "[Sen.] Hillary Rodham Clinton [D-NY] declared that her energy policy rests on the nationalization of America's oil companies." Beaudoin claimed Clinton's remarks were not "[t]houghtless words taken out of context" and asserted her comments to be Clinton “finally showing her true color ... red as in Lenin. ... Red as in if you are successful I will confiscate your property and, because I know how to utilize it better than you do, society will be better off. Red as in communism.” Beaudoin's characterization of Clinton's energy policy echoes that of Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron, who said her policy would be unpopular with “capitalists.”

In fact, in her February 1 remarks, Clinton proposed “to take” the oil industry's record profits and “put them into a Strategic Energy Fund that will begin to fund alternative, smart energy ... that will begin to actually move us towards the direction of [energy] independence.” In a May 23, 2006, speech at the National Press Club, Clinton unveiled a plan that she said would “reduc[e] our dependence on foreign oil by at least 50 percent by 2025.” A press release accompanying her speech stated that her proposal provides for levying a “temporary fee” upon oil company “profits that exceed a 2000-2004 profit baseline.” In her May 2006 speech, Clinton proposed instituting this tax “over the next two years” on oil companies that “reap huge benefits from unexpectedly high energy prices.” According to the press release, the companies would “be required to pay a portion of their profits into the strategic energy fund,” which would invest in alternative energies. The press release also stated that this “temporary fee,” combined with “eliminat[ing] oil company tax breaks” and “ensur[ing] that oil companies pay their fair share of royalties for drilling on public lands,” would “raise more than $50 billion to fund research, development and deployment of energy technologies that will reduce America's oil dependence and greenhouse gas emissions.”

As Media Matters for America has previously noted, while reporting on Clinton's DNC speech on the February 2 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron said that Clinton's “pledge to take oil company profits and put them into an energy fund” is “an idea not likely to go over well with capitalists.” Cameron provided no evidence for his claim that Clinton's plan would “not likely go over well” with those, beyond the oil companies themselves, who believe that a capitalist economy in general is superior to other economic structures -- a proposition that presumably none of the major presidential hopefuls would contest.

InsightMag.com is the successor to Insight on the News, a biweekly magazine published until April 2004 by News World Communications, the company controlled by Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church that also owns The Washington Times and the wire service United Press International. The website describes itself as a “weekly Internet news magazine.”

From Beaudoin's February 21 guest commentary on InsightMag.com:

At the 2007 Democratic National Committee Winter Meeting in early February, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton declared that her energy policy rests on the nationalization of America's oil companies. In her own words (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1PfE9K8j0g):

“The other day the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits and put them into an alternative energy fund [sic: Strategic Energy Fund] that will begin to fund alternative smart energy alternatives that will actually begin to move us toward the direction of independence.”

Thoughtless words taken out of context, these are not. That was a prepared speech to the DNC. And, to make matters worse, the Democrats in attendance heartily applauded in a way reminiscent of Lenin's long-dead “useful idiots.”

The inventor of the “vast right wing conspiracy” is finally showing her true color. And it is red. Not red as in “red states” but red as in Lenin. Red as in if you are successful I will confiscate your property and, because I know how to utilize it better than you do, society will be better off. Red as in communism.

From Clinton's February 1 speech before the Democratic National Committee:

CLINTON: The same is true of energy independence. The Democrats know what needs to be done. Again, we're working to try to push this agenda forward. The other day the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits, and I want to put them into a Strategic Energy Fund that will begin to fund alternative, smart energy; alternatives and technologies that will begin to actually move us towards the direction of independence. And, I have to tell you, I am not running for president to put band-aids on our problems. I am running to ensure that we actually address them and meet them and get results here in our country, because we have to prove to ourselves, as well as the rest of the world, that we're still the most creative, the most innovative, most effective nation in the history of the world.