If the spokesman said it with her permission, it is just as good as from her. If he said it without her permission, then her campaign is already out of control. I think the former is a lot more likely.
Anyhow, it is not like Geffen is the first person to think these things. Part of a primary campaign is to see how candidates deal with stuff like this. If Hillary were the candidate, and the Pubbie says this, is this how she’s going to respond? Wouldn’t we be much better off if Kerry had been Swift Boated 9 months earlier. The last thing we need is yet another president in a bubble who doesn’t hear or respond to criticism.
On his Daily Show interview, Bill said you have to strike back at attacks. You might tone it down inside the party, but you don’t go whining that someone made the attack. This isn’t an election for president of the sixth grade class.
Hillary, provided by an overeager assistant with a transcript of Geffen’s remarks before she’d had more than a sip of her morning coffee, understandably lost her temper,* slammed her fist down on the breakfast tray,** and shouted, rhetorically and to no one in particular,*** “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome beast?”****
You can imagine the rest.
After all, everybody’s got a temper to lose, and it must be enormously stressful to have to keep it reined in no matter how many asshatteries one’s subjected to in the course of a presidential campaign.
** Spilling hot coffee on herself and further infuriating her, no doubt.
*** Though I believe it is fair to assume that at least one and probably a number of staffers would be at hand ready to serve whatever need she might happen to express.
**** Or words to that effect, as I do not know whether Hillary is an aficionado of The Lion In Winter.
Other than the fact that she screwed up universal healthcare in the 90’s with her utter contempt of anyone’s opinon but her own; has shown very little leadership while in the senate; voted for the war in Iraq; still supports our presence in Iraq; thinks Iraq has something to do with the war on terror; strikes me as a political opportunist who would hire Karl Rove to get her elected if she thought people wouldn’t notice; and now she strikes me as a shrill crybaby bitch who is cribbing notes from Karl Rove’s playbook and losing something in the translation.
She’s only slightly ahead of Edwards in my book, sure, Edwards is bought and paid for by the trial bar but at least he has apologized for his vote on Iraq.
Hillary did just enough. She had several platforms the last couple of days where she was asked about it and changed the topic to Bush and the war.
So on the one hand she showed she wouldn’t be a silent punching bag like Kerry and the boatmen, and on the other hand that she wouldn’t follow Trump’s example of just repeating things every time someone asked.
Since you brought this up: even if it’s true, is it important? Or is it a big so-what?
I mean, there really isn’t that much the President can do for the trial bar, other than keep Tort Deform from happening nationally. That’s slightly bigger a deal than being bought and paid for by the Audobon Society, I suppose, but not much.
There have been three major tort reform bills considered in congress recently. One was the class action lawsuit reform bill which passed and did so for good reason. Then there was the asbestos trust fund bill which got struck down on a procedural matter 59 to 40 (with one abstention). Then there was the mediacl liability limit legislation which failed for good reason.
Federal law can supercede state law in more than a few areas.
This is why I used the phrase “by and large.” Yes, there are things the federal government does that affect trial lawyers, but that is on the periphery. Class action lawsuits? That affects only the tiny percentage of lawyers who pursue such claims. Same with asbestos claims, which only a few lawyers handle.
The medical liability legislation was broader in scope, but also likely unconstitutional (in my view). I can’t imagine the conservative members of the Supreme Court allowing such an intrusion of the federal government into state tort law. So whether a President did or did not sign off on such legislation would likely be moot.
Not without invoking the federal government’s power to regulate interstate commerce, and there is reason to think that the current court will not interpret the commerce clause as broadly as has been the case in the past.
The primary arena for tort law and so-called “tort reform” remains the state legislatures, over which the President exercises no control. At best, the President can fiddle around at the periphery (as with the asbestos legislation and class action legislation).
