Subject: ​Correct The Record Tuesday September 16, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 15:45:06 -0400
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Tuesday September 16, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@davidbrockdc
<https://twitter.com/davidbrockdc>: "There's hope the Benghazi Committee
does their duty reasonably. We'll be ready if they don't."
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/hillary-clinton-benghazi-hearings-110991.html
…
<http://t.co/PobYXVNJiE> [9/16/14, 12:05 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/511908707148787712>]

*Correct The Record’s Burns Strider *@BStrider: .@correctrecord
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord> & @American_Bridge
<https://twitter.com/American_Bridge> launch http://benghazicommittee.com/
<http://t.co/5iORgfcpZJ> ahead of House Benghazi hearings
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/hillary-clinton-benghazi-hearings-110991.html
…
<http://t.co/M54HdrHNcu> [9/16/14, 10:40 a.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/BStrider/status/511887305804902400>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: At the #HarkinSteakFry
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/HarkinSteakFry?src=hash>, @HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> said that "women should be able to
make our own health care decisions."
http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4508591/hillary-clinton-speaks-harkin-fundraiser
…
<http://t.co/0isMgOkYCE> [9/15/14, 5:09 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/511622788398854144>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> fought to help veterans continue their
education. [9/15/14, 4:56 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/511619478191239168>]

*Headlines:*

*FROM MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA: Media Matters for America: “From Tragedy
To Farce: How Fox News And The GOP Tarnished Benghazi”
<http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/09/16/from-tragedy-to-farce-how-fox-news-and-the-gop/200762>*

“The professionally sustained hysteria over the minutia of Benghazi --the
YouTube video, Susan Rice's talking points, the allegedly nefarious White
House emails, and the imaginary stand-down order -- they were all
constructed for partisan purposes and none of them were based on fact or
common sense.”

*Salon: “Report: Fox News aired more than 1,000 Benghazi segments in just
20 months”
<http://www.salon.com/2014/09/16/report_fox_news_aired_more_than_1000_benghazi_segments_in_just_20_months/>*

“Having presumably decided not much else was happening in the news during
the 20-month period between the 2012 attacks on the U.S. mission in
Benghazi and May 2 of this year, Fox News aired no less than 1,098
primetime segments devoted to the #Benghazi pseudo-controversy, liberal
media watchdog Media Matters claims in a new report.”

*Washington Post blog: Post Politics: “In a preemptive push, House
Democrats unveil new Benghazi site”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/09/16/in-a-preemptive-push-house-democrats-unveil-new-benghazi-site/>*

“House Democrats on the Benghazi Select Committee plan to address lingering
public questions surrounding that attack -- and drown out any potential
leaks with a flood of information -- with a new Web site Tuesday, as that
panel prepares to meet publicly for the first time.”

*Breitbart: “Rep. Cummings Says Maxwell Never Mentioned Document Sifting by
State Department”
<http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2014/09/16/Rep-Cummings-Says-Maxwell-Never-Mentioned-Document-Sifting-by-State-Department>*

“Ray Maxwell reportedly told Congress about the State Department's sifting
of Benghazi documents a year ago. However, ranking member Elijah Cummings
tells Dave Weigel he never heard about it. Something doesn't quite add up.”

*The New Yorker: “Hillary’s Challenge: Dealing With Bill and Barack”
<http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/hillary-clinton-challenge-iowa-dealing-bill-barack>*

“How Hillary deals with Bill and Barack could be her greatest challenge or
her greatest opportunity—or perhaps both.”

*Washington Post opinion: Eugene Robinson: “Hillary Clinton, tell us your
vision”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-hillary-clinton-needs-to-tell-americans-her-vision/2014/09/15/b1f39ee4-3d09-11e4-b0ea-8141703bbf6f_story.html>*

“Judging by her weekend appearance in Iowa, it looks as if Hillary Clinton
is indeed running for president. Now she has to answer one simple question:
Why?”

*MSNBC: “Immigration activists put Democrats on notice”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/immigration-activists-put-democrats-notice>*

“It was always a matter of when — not if —  a young undocumented immigrant
known as a ‘DREAMer’ would confront Hillary Clinton. The confrontation came
early on for the likely 2016 presidential candidate.”

*Politico: “Bill Clinton takes a shot at Netanyahu”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/bill-clinton-benjamin-netanyahu-110997.html>*

“Former President Bill Clinton says he agrees that Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu is ‘not the guy’ for a peace deal.”

*Wall Street Journal blog: Washington Wire: “Is She or Isn’t She Running?
Do Americans Really Care?”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/09/16/is-she-or-isnt-she-running-do-americans-really-care/>*

“What is clear is that there is a disconnect between voters’ concerns about
Washington’s ability to get things accomplished and their desire for action
by 2016 and the media’s obsession with Hillary Clinton’s version of Hamlet.”

*Articles:*

*FROM MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA: Media Matters for America: “From Tragedy
To Farce: How Fox News And The GOP Tarnished Benghazi”
<http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/09/16/from-tragedy-to-farce-how-fox-news-and-the-gop/200762>*

By Eric Boehlert

September 16, 2014

[Subtitle:] 1,000-Plus Evening Benghazi Segments From Fox

On September 6, Republican Congressman Lynn Westmoreland spoke at a Cobb
County Republican breakfast in Georgia to an audience of 75 people, who
each paid $10 to attend his "update on the Benghazi investigation."

Westmoreland is one of seven Republican members picked to serve on the
House select committee, which holds its first public hearing tomorrow and
could stretch its inquiries into the 2016 election year. The latest
Republican-run body follows what has been a parade of costly and repetitive
investigations into the Benghazi terror attack that killed four Americans.

Despite a laundry list of nearly identical conclusions about the events,
and the complete absence of a White House cover-up or wrongdoing,
Republicans, spurred on by Fox News, press ahead in search of "answers" to
supposedly elusive questions.

But in Cobb County that Saturday morning, Westmoreland insisted the
committee's not "a partisan witch hunt." He stressed another point,
according to a report in the Marietta Daily Journal [emphasis added]:

“‘I think our enemy stands on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.,’ Westmoreland said to
loud applause.”

And so it goes.

Last week, as Fox's Benghazi cover-up conspiracy sputtered across the
two-year anniversary line, Roger Ailes' team was furiously promoting not
one but two new books, claiming both tomes boasted revelations that
deepened the alleged controversy. (They do not.)

Benghazi, of course, has been politicized in the most disturbing way
possible, to the point where Fox News and conservatives have has turned an
American tragedy into something of a macabre Twitter punchline. It's become
sort of a Groundhog Day of exploitation and fakery with more than one
thousand on-air Fox segments -- during evening coverage alone -- devoted to
the endless pursuit. And now the Republicans' select committee, virtually
sponsored by Fox News, is set to add more chapters to the sprawling
production, which conveniently doubles as a GOP fundraising tool.

According to press reports, the committee's first hearing will focus on the
State Department's Accountability Review Board, which looked into the
details surrounding the Benghazi attacks.  In other words, Republican
investigators have decided to investigate the Benghazi investigators. Again.

And at this point, does anyone even remember in 2012 when the family of
slain U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens beseeched opportunists not to
politicize his death? ("It would really be abhorrent to make this into a
campaign issue.") Or when the mother of one of the other murdered Americans
in Benghazi scolded Mitt Romney when he kept referencing her son on the
presidential campaign trail? ("It's wrong to use these brave young men, who
wanted freedom for all, to degrade Obama.")

Those wishes were almost instantly trampled and are now long forgotten by
most; distant echoes drowned out by the churning gears of phony outrage.

The professionally sustained hysteria over the minutia of Benghazi --the
YouTube video, Susan Rice's talking points, the allegedly nefarious White
House emails, and the imaginary stand-down order -- they were all
constructed for partisan purposes and none of them were based on fact or
common sense.

Increasingly, and somewhat  belatedly, some mainstream press players have
figured this out. Many reporters and pundits who were open and eager to
follow every conceivable right-wing allegation about Benghazi (while
playing down good news for the White House) have cooled to the chase in
recent months and coverage was been slim. There's also been surprisingly
little chatter in anticipation of the select committee's proceedings. After
two years of dry holes, it's difficult to feign interest any more. And poor
CBS. It took a newsroom scandal of historic proportions to  drive home the
painful lesson of chasing bogus, partisan Benghazi allegations.

But at Fox News, the ratings-grabbing obsession remains strong. And now,
thanks to Media Matters' meticulous research, we know just how far and how
all-consuming that obsession has stretched. It's hard to even wrap your
heads around some of these numbers from Fox's coverage in the 20 months
following the attack:

-1,098 total Fox News evening segments that included significant discussion
of Benghazi -- an average of about 13 segments per week.

-144 interviews with GOP members of Congress versus only five interviews
with Democratic members of Congress and Obama administration officials.

Note the relentless and out of control focus showered on the story by
Special Report, which Fox executives often point to as its premiere and
serious news program, not just a partisan talk show. Serious news program?
It aired nearly 400 Benghazi reports in less than two years.

Please also pay attention to the fact that despite its flood-the-zone
coverage, Fox has been unable to move the Benghazi cover-up story one foot
in two years. Almost nothing Fox has reported over the last 24 months has
added in any significant way to the understanding of what happened in
Benghazi the night of the attack. And considering Fox has set aside more
than one thousand segments to the topic, that fact simply confirms the
team's collective impotence.

A Benghazi "stand down order" coming from Obama or Hillary Clinton? A cold,
calculated move to leave wounded and dying Americans behind? Give me a
break.

From the Associated Press, July 10:

“The testimony of nine military officers undermines contentions by
Republican lawmakers that a "stand-down order" held back military assets
that could have saved the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans killed
at a diplomatic outpost and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya.”

If, when Fox first made the fantastical claim of a White House-given "stand
down" order the centerpiece of the channel's cover-up production, someone
then had told you that nine U.S. military officers would eventually debunk
and deny that claim under oath, you'd assume the issue would be dropped,
right? (And if the accusers were admirable people they'd apologize, too.)

Still, Fox's breathless "stand down" segments live on, in perpetuity.

The truth is, in the absences of any evidence supporting an alleged
cover-up, Benghazi as a partisan pursuit has failed, propagated by the
thousand-plus Fox News reports and endless Congressional investigations.
Now it's time for the sponsors to admit defeat and go home so that an
American tragedy can be remembered with the dignity it deserves. Not as a
tarnished, political sideshow.

*Salon: “Report: Fox News aired more than 1,000 Benghazi segments in just
20 months”
<http://www.salon.com/2014/09/16/report_fox_news_aired_more_than_1000_benghazi_segments_in_just_20_months/>*

By Elias Isquith

September 16, 2014, 10:42 a.m. EDT

[Subtitle:] Media Matters claims the right-wing news channel spent "about
13 segments per week" talking about the 2012 attack

Having presumably decided not much else was happening in the news during
the 20-month period between the 2012 attacks on the U.S. mission in
Benghazi and May 2 of this year, Fox News aired no less than 1,098
primetime segments devoted to the #Benghazi pseudo-controversy, liberal
media watchdog Media Matters claims in a new report.

According to Media Matters, Fox News’ decision to air that many Benghazi
segments during such a short and constrained period of time meant that the
network was churning out an average of 13 Benghazi bites per week. In 18 of
the 20 months Media Matters took a look at, the report claims, there were
at least 20 Benghazi segments per month. (As you’d expect, October 2012 was
the highest with 174.) Perhaps most tellingly, Media Matters also found Fox
had tied Benghazi to Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the
time of the attack and is widely expected to run for president in 2016.

One piece of particular interest in Media Matters’ report is the breakdown
of how often each member of Fox News’s primetime lineup had a segment about
Benghazi. Close observers of Fox News and connoisseurs of the many talking
points and excuses of its master, Roger Ailes, will notice that “Special
Report with Bret Baier” host Bret Baier is leading the pack. Here’s a
graphic, via Media Matters:

[GRAPH]

Here’s why this is notable. Baier is supposed to be one of Fox News’s
“voice of God,” Walter Cronkite-esque old fashioned news men. He may have
opinions, the theory goes, but he keeps them to himself and simply delivers
the straight news. Granted, Baier no doubt did many segments about Benghazi
during October and November and December of 2012 that one could
legitimately classify as news. But to be outpacing O’Reilly by more than
200? Sometimes it feels like Ailes and Rupert Murdoch are no longer even
trying.

You can read the whole Media Matters report here. The main takeaway is —
yep, you guessed it: #Benghazi.

*Washington Post blog: Post Politics: “In a preemptive push, House
Democrats unveil new Benghazi site”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/09/16/in-a-preemptive-push-house-democrats-unveil-new-benghazi-site/>*

By Wesley Lowery

September 16, 2014, 12:01 a.m. EDT

House Democrats on the Benghazi Select Committee plan to address lingering
public questions surrounding that attack -- and drown out any potential
leaks with a flood of information -- with a new Web site Tuesday, as that
panel prepares to meet publicly for the first time.

Democrats are looking to influence the direction and tone of the committee,
which will focus its first open hearingWednesday on a review board the
State Department created after the attack to examine the government’s
security systems abroad.

"It is critical that the Select Committee make full use of the extensive
investigations that have already been completed—which are compiled here—to
define its scope, avoid duplication, and conserve taxpayer dollars to help
improve the security of U.S. facilities and personnel around the world,"
House Democrats on the committee wrote in an executive summary of the
compendium they are releasing in conjunction with the site.

The Select Committee, chaired by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), has a $3.3
million budget for 2014, and its activities are expected to stretch into
2015.

The Obama administration's handling of the Benghazi attack, which left four
Americans dead in September of 2012, has been a major rallying point for
Republicans in the years since. The incident, the administration's response
to it and the political aftermath have all already been the focus of
several congressional and external investigations, culminating in the
creation of the Select Committee this year.

Previous panels were plagued by selective leaks and the release of limited
information that Democrats say distorted events. Now they're flooding the
zone with a site that collects and curates the results of those
investigations. It allows a user to search for what statements or questions
are still being asked about the attacks, shows which members of Congress
have been asking them, and provides a swarm of documents and evidence in
response to some of the public's most-asked questions about the Benghazi
attack.

Staffers for committee members on both sides of the aisle have expressed
guarded optimism that despite the political firestorm that ultimately
resulted in the panel's creation, members may be successful at analyzing
whether or not the recommendations of previous congressional investigations
into the attacks -- specifically, recommendations about how the State
Department can improve security measures at diplomatic outposts -- have
been adequately implemented.

*Breitbart: “Rep. Cummings Says Maxwell Never Mentioned Document Sifting by
State Department”
<http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2014/09/16/Rep-Cummings-Says-Maxwell-Never-Mentioned-Document-Sifting-by-State-Department>*

By John Sexton

September 16, 2014, 9:42 a.m. PDT

Ray Maxwell reportedly told Congress about the State Department's sifting
of Benghazi documents a year ago. However, ranking member Elijah Cummings
tells Dave Weigel he never heard about it. Something doesn't quite add up.

Yesterday Sharyl Attkisson published a genuine blockbuster story related to
Benghazi. One of the four employees who was disciplined by the State
Department revealed he had witnesses individuals with close connection to
Hillary Clinton sifting out damaging documents, apparently before turning
them over to the Accountability Review Board. If accurate, this would
obviously be a major blow to the credibility of the ARB and to Hillary
Clinton.

After the story broke, Dave Weigel wrote a piece relating the basic claims
in Attkisson's report but also expressing a bit of incredulity that Maxwell
sat on the story for so long.

“That's what makes the new story so baffling. If it's true, Maxwell has
been sitting for at least 18 months on a story that puts Hillary Clinton's
political advisers at the center of a conspiracy to conceal documents that
could be damaging to the 2016 presidential frontrunner.”

It's perhaps worth noting that all four of the disciplined employees were
eventually called back to work in August 2013. Perhaps Maxwell was waiting
to see how things worked out before going public with his most explosive
claim. But rather than return, Maxwell chose to resign.

In any case, Attkisson noticed Weigel's take on the story and praised it on
Twitter. But she also added a bit of information that hadn't been clear
before.

*Sharyl Attkisson* @SharylAttkisson: Nice article @daveweigel (PS Maxwell
told members of Congress a year ago.) [9/15/14, 10:38 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/SharylAttkisson/status/511705653392322560>]

After Weigel responded, Attkisson expanded on this in a 2nd tweet:

*Slate’s David Weigel* @daveweigel: @SharylAttkisson It's amazing. He held
onto it that long, as did they? Talk about a long game. [9/15/14, 10:45
p.m. EDT <https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/511707542519836672>]

*Sharyl Attkisson* @SharylAttkisson: @daveweigel Yes..I think he didn't
think Cong. would hang onto it that long. He spoke of it for well over a
yr. Just not in public. Wow. [9/15/14,10:48 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/SharylAttkisson/status/511708114522243073>]

And here is where things get really interesting. Maxwell was interviewed by
the Oversight Committee on May 30, 2013. We know because some of what he
said in that interview appeared in a Majority Staff Report published in
September. If Maxwell told Congress about the sifting more than a year ago,
that would likely have been when he did so. And if so then one of the
people who would be expected to hear about it is the ranking member on the
Oversight Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings. But Weigel reports this morning
that Cummings says Maxwell never brought it up:

*Slate’s David Weigel* @daveweigel: Cummings skeptical of Ray Maxwell’s
claim that Clintonites hid Benghazi dox. He "did not bring it to our
attention when we interviewed him." [9/16/14, 11:31 a.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/511900130719846400>]

What are we to make of this new wrinkle? I can see several possibilities.
One, Maxwell may not have told Congress a year ago as he claims. That would
mean he misled Attkisson and would cast doubt on his entire story. It would
also be at odds with the poetry (yes, he wrote poetry) which suggested in
2013 that he had something on the Department.

Another possibility is that Maxwell revealed the information to the
Majority of the Committee but that it was somehow withheld from the
Minority. Maxwell (or Rep. Issa?) may have believed Cummings was only
working to kill the story and couldn't be trusted with the damaging
information.

The third possibility is that Cummings is denying knowledge of something he
has known about for some time as way to discount the story. This seems
unlikely since Rep. Issa would presumably have a transcript somewhere.

If Maxwell told Congress that certainly reinforces the credibility of his
story and of Attkisson's report. What we still don't know is how Cummings
could have missed something this significant for an entire year.

*The New Yorker: “Hillary’s Challenge: Dealing With Bill and Barack”
<http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/hillary-clinton-challenge-iowa-dealing-bill-barack>*

By John Cassidy

September 15, 2014

Given the advance of satellite technology and the pressure on editorial
budgets, you might have thought that the bean counters at the networks and
other media outlets would have agreed upon a pooling system for events such
as the weekend appearance at Tom Harkin’s annual steak fry, in Iowa, by
Hillary and Bill Clinton. Not so. This is another case where individual
self-interest militates against an economically efficient collective
solution. And that’s great. Rather than having to rely on a single pool
report or the local papers, we have a wide range of dispatches to go by.

Courtesy of Philip Rucker and Dan Balz, here is Monday’s news lede from the
Washington Post: “Hillary Rodham Clinton jumped back into the partisan fray
here Sunday, framing the November midterm elections as ‘a choice between
the guardians of gridlock and the champions of shared opportunity’ and
warning Democrats of the consequences of complacency.”

As far as it went, that was accurate and helpful. (It’s good to see that
the Clinton speechwriters still know how to use alliteration.) Before we
get to 2016, or even 2015, we all have to get through the midterms. But if
you are willing to believe that Hillary’s primary purpose in travelling to
Indianola, a small town south of Des Moines, was to influence the outcome
this November, I have a bridge, and several 2007 vintage CDOs, that I think
might interest you.

Politico’s Maggie Haberman, in her report, made clear up front that Hillary
was preparing the ground for her Presidential campaign and seeking to lay
some ghosts in a spot where she lost a key 2008 primary to Barack Obama. It
was, Haberman wrote, Hillary’s “first step toward moving past her phobia of
the state that helped shatter her 2008 presidential hopes.” Hillary didn’t
acknowledge this, of course, or even that she’s running again. “It is true,
I am thinking about it,” she said. “But for today, that’s not why I am
here.”

Until they officially declare for office, candidates are allowed a few
fibs. The crowd, which the Des Moines Register estimated at about ten
thousand, gave Hillary a warm reception, and she appeared to enjoy herself.
After starting out with a rousing “Hello, Iowa, I’m ba-a-a-ck!,” she
delivered a twenty-minute speech that hit most of the right notes. She
talked about the economic challenges facing middle-class families, called
for equal pay for women, delivered a well-earned tribute to Harkin’s long
career in the Senate, and endorsed Bruce Braley, the Democratic candidate
who is trying to replace him.

For many political insiders, though, the real topic of interest was how
Hillary would deal with her husband, Bill, and her former boss Barack
Obama, both of whom loom large over her prospective campaign. In 2008,
according to the conventional wisdom touted by campaign books, Bill’s
indiscipline was a significant handicap to her. Now, in addition to
delineating a role for the Big Dog in the run-up to November, 2016, she
needs to define, or redefine, her relationship with a President whom she
served for four years but whose low popularity ratings could be a big drag
on her own Presidential hopes.

How Hillary deals with Bill and Barack could be her greatest challenge or
her greatest opportunity—or perhaps both.

On the face of things, having a popular former President by her side is a
great opportunity. After Bill Clinton left the Oval Office, he could be
relied upon to rally the Democratic base, especially minorities. Today, his
popularity extends to independents and even some Republicans. In the past
year or two, his approval rating has consistently been in the mid or high
sixties, which means he’s a lot more popular now than he was for most of
his two terms in office. His ratings are also a good deal higher than
Hillary’s. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal survey puts her approval rating at
just forty-three per cent, which represents a steep fall from her figures a
couple of years ago.

Of course, it’s not clear how much of a boost the former President can give
his wife. If he plays an active role in her campaign, his image as an elder
statesman may be tarnished, in which case his own approval rating would
fall. Something like this appears to be what has happened to Hillary. A
couple of years back, she was a hardworking Secretary of State, flying all
around the world representing the United States and, seemingly, above the
daily Washington squabbles. Now many Americans see her as another partisan
politician, and her popularity has suffered accordingly.

Bill’s presence should help his wife at least somewhat. According to Jordan
Ragusa, a data analyst at the Rule 22 blog, “when Bill’s approval rating
increases by 1 unit,Hillary’s approval increases by just under 1/2 in the
same direction.” I’m not sure how this finding can be reconciled with the
recent sharp decline in Hillary’s numbers. But given the halo that now
surrounds the late nineteen-nineties, a period of peace and prosperity, it
only makes sense for Hillary’s campaign to remind voters of Bill. One of
his adages from 1992 might go over better now than it did back then: when
you elect a Clinton, you get “two for the price of one.”

The danger for Hillary’s campaign is that her husband’s presence becomes an
unwelcome diversion—a story that some parts of the media are already
running with. “It was a preview of coming distractions” was the first line
in the New York Times piece about Hillary’s return to Iowa. “As is often
the case wherever Mr. Clinton goes, what amounted to the unofficial start
of the next Iowa presidential caucuses was as much about the Clinton who
already served as president as the one who appears to have designs on the
office,” the reporters Jonathan Martin and Amy Chozick continued.

Maybe that’s how it seemed from the press area. But were the ordinary
attendees at the steak fry so distracted by the former President that they
failed to get Hillary’s message? On Monday, the Web site of the Des Moines
Register, which presumably knows its readers pretty well, featured a video
of Hillary’s entire speech. The paper’s coverage of Bill’s speech, in which
he took a few swings at the Koch brothers and recalled that the 1993 steak
fry was so wet it reminded him of Woodstock, focussed on how he had
mispronounced Bruce Braley’s name.

For now, at least, a bigger challenge for Hillary than handling Bill
Clinton is figuring out how to position herself in relation to Obama. Last
month, when she appeared to criticize the President’s non-interventionist
stance on Syria, she had to call him and clarify her remarks. In Iowa, by
contrast, she went out of her way to ally herself with the domestic
policies and economic record of the Obama Administration—a record that has
helped earn the President a thirty-seven-per-cent approval rating in the
state. Although it didn’t garner many headlines, it was probably the most
important and substantive thing to come out of her speech.

Near the beginning, she artfully acknowledged her 2008 defeat in the Iowa
caucus by a young senator from Illinois, joking, “I wonder whatever
happened to him.” Then, after recounting how she and the President had
become colleagues and friends, Hillary bracketed him with the two iconic
men with whom she appeared: “And when it comes to moving America forward,
we know what it takes,” she said. “We’ve seen it in Tom Harkin. We’ve seen
it in Bill Clinton. And we’ve seen it in Barack Obama. Under President
Obama’s leadership, out country is on the road to recovery.”

To support this argument, she cited rising exports and falling
unemployment, which has seen the jobless rate in Iowa fall to just 4.5 per
cent. She mentioned a surge in energy production from renewable sources,
and she defended the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature policy
initiative, saying that it had generated $1.7 million in refunds for Iowa
families. To be sure, she qualified this praise by saying that she and
Obama would agree that there is “a lot of work ahead” “Maintaining a middle
class life feels like pushing a boulder up hill every day,” she added.

By then, though, Hillary had sent an important political message. While she
may still try to put some distance between herself and the President on
foreign issues, when it comes to domestic policy she and Obama are as one.

In many ways, of course, that shouldn’t come as a shock. In fighting a deep
recession with Keynesian stimulus policies, raising tax rates on the rich,
boosting the minimum wage, and seeking to provide health care for all, the
Obama Administration was pursuing a mainstream progressive agenda that
virtually all Democrats support, and, to a large extent, it has worked as
advertised. Moreover, much of this agenda can be traced to the
Administration of Bill Clinton. In the case of universal health coverage,
the lineage can be traced back to Hillary herself.

No surprises there, then. Still, it was helpful of Hillary, at this early
stage, to make things clear: her 2016 campaign will rise or fall on
defending the economic record of the past six years.

*Washington Post opinion: Eugene Robinson: “Hillary Clinton, tell us your
vision”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-hillary-clinton-needs-to-tell-americans-her-vision/2014/09/15/b1f39ee4-3d09-11e4-b0ea-8141703bbf6f_story.html>*

By Eugene Robinson

September 15, 2014, 7:56 p.m. EDT

Judging by her weekend appearance in Iowa, it looks as if Hillary Clinton
is indeed running for president. Now she has to answer one simple question:
Why?

“It is true, I am thinking about it,” she said Sunday at the final Harkin
Steak Fry, an annual cholesterol-boosting fundraiser that Sen. Tom Harkin
(D-Iowa), who is retiring, has hosted for 37 years. Given the context, this
was pretty close to an announcement of the Clinton 2016 campaign.

She was in Iowa, whose first-in-the-nation caucuses kick off presidential
primary season. She was accompanied by her husband, Bill, who did his best
to play the supporting role of a candidate’s spouse, although second fiddle
is an instrument he has not quite mastered. She greeted the crowd by
announcing, “Hello, Iowa, I’m baaaaack,” stretching the word for emphasis.

The last time she barnstormed through Iowa, it did not go well. The 2008
caucuses were supposed to ratify her status as the Democratic  front-runner
and show her challengers the futility of their puny efforts. Instead, she
finished third, behind Barack Obama and John Edwards. The Clinton machine
lost the air of inevitability that had been its greatest asset — and turned
out to lack a compelling message that could compete with Obama’s promise of
hope and change.

Now Clinton begins another campaign — perhaps — in which she is seen as the
inevitable winner. She has said she will make a firm decision “probably
after the first of the year.” But if she has reached the point of dropping
broad hints, she needs to begin telling the nation how and why she proposes
to lead.

The election of the first woman as president would be a great milestone,
but a glance at the headlines — economic and social dislocation at home,
terrorism and war abroad — suggests that voters will not likely be in the
mood for symbolic gestures. To win the nomination, let alone the general
election, Clinton will have to lay out her vision of the way forward.

Her memoir of the years she spent as secretary of state, “Hard Choices,”
offers little guidance. My view is that Clinton did an excellent job as
America’s chief diplomat, but if she has an overarching philosophy of
foreign relations, she left it out of the book. We know that President
Obama believes in multilateralism and the sparing use of U.S. military
force. We know that some critics believe we should be more interventionist
and others believe we should be more isolationist. “Hard Choices” doesn’t
really tell us which way Clinton leans, though her record suggests a slight
nod toward the hawkish side.

In the book, Clinton rejects the idea of choosing between the “hard power”
of military might and the “soft power” of diplomacy, sanctions and foreign
aid. Instead, she advocates “smart power,” which seems to mean “all of the
above.” When I hear officials talking about “smart” this or “smart” that, I
hear a buzzword that is often meant to obscure policy choices rather than
illuminate them.

Clinton’s message on domestic affairs is also unclear. At the Iowa event,
she sounded what is sure to be a major theme for both Democrats and
Republicans in the coming campaign: the need to ease the plight of the
beleaguered middle class.

“Today, you know so well, American families are working harder than ever,
but maintaining a middle-class life feels like pushing a boulder uphill
every single day,” she said, adding that “we can build a growing economy of
shared prosperity.”

If this indicates she is beginning to formulate a populist appeal, she will
find that territory already staked out by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) —
a non-candidate who nevertheless had sign-carrying supporters in the Iowa
crowd. Warren’s blistering critique of structural economic inequality is
popular with liberal Democrats, some of whom see Clinton as too cozy with
Wall Street.

When Warren is asked about her intentions, her standard formulation is “I
am not running for president,” using the present tense — which doesn’t
definitively rule anything out. It seems likely, in any event, that someone
will challenge Clinton from the left.

After Clinton’s brief speech, her husband tried his best not to steal the
show. Bill Clinton tossed out lines that can only be called Clintonesque —
“We have got to pull this country together to push this country forward” —
and implored Democrats and Republicans to find ways to work together.

Centrist pragmatism as a campaign theme? In U.S. politics today, the middle
is a dangerous place to be.

*MSNBC: “Immigration activists put Democrats on notice”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/immigration-activists-put-democrats-notice>*

By Alex Seitz-Wald

September 16, 2014, 8:04 a.m. EDT

It was always a matter of when — not if —  a young undocumented immigrant
known as a “DREAMer” would confront Hillary Clinton. The confrontation came
early on for the likely 2016 presidential candidate.

“Hello my name is Monica Reyes and I’m an Iowa DREAMer,” the senior at the
University of Northern Iowa told Clinton as the former secretary of state
worked a lengthy rope line at the Iowa Steak Fry. “Yay!” Clinton replied,
flashing a thumbs up as she kept moving.

The former secretary of state has spent the past six years behind a wall of
Secret Service agents and staffers, and three Latino activists took
advantage of Sunday’s event in Iowa to put Clinton on the spot as she
signed hats and shook hands with fans.

Cesar Vargas, another activist who co-directs the DREAM Action Coalition,
picked up where Reyes off, telling Clinton that President Barack Obama had
broken his promise to Latinos by delaying planned executive action to ease
deportations. “Well, I think we have to elect more Democrats,” Clinton
replied, in an apparent reference to the pressure some Democrats put on the
White House to hold off on the order.

The answer didn’t satisfy the activists. “So far, that was her first strike
in dealing with immigration,” Vargas told msnbc.

These kind of exchanges, recorded on video for immediate distribution and
broadcast, are the signature endeavor of an increasingly confrontational
immigration movement that has become adept at embarrassing Republicans —
and now it’s Democrats’ turn.

In the past, DREAMers staged sit-ins in the offices of Democratic lawmakers
and Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, but the lack of a Democratic
primary in 2012 meant most of their action targeted Republicans.

Most recently, and also in Iowa, a DREAMer faced off with Sen. Rand Paul,
also a likely presidential candidate. When Vargas and another activist,
Erika Andiola, confronted Paul and Rep. Steve King at a restaurant, Paul
dropped the burger he was eating and fled the scene posthaste. He later
dismissed the incident as a “Kamikaze interview.”

Can Clinton or any other Democrat who runs for president expect the same
treatment?  ”Of course,” Reyes told msnbc. “That’s going to be our main
goal.”

While immigration is unlikely to be a central issue in the Iowa Democratic
Caucus in 2016, and DREAMers can’t vote, their actions in the “first in the
nation” state set the stage for places where Latinos make up larger
portions of the population.

In Iowa, only 5.5% of the population is Hispanic, according to the latest
Census figures. That’s by far the largest minority group in what remains an
overwhelmingly white state, says Mark Grey, a professor at the University
of Northern Iowa who runs the Iowa Center for Immigrant Leadership and
Integration. Still, that number is very small.

Since the recession, few recently arrived Latino immigrants have settled in
Iowa. Instead, refugees and migrants from former American colonies like the
Marshall Islands have made up the bulk of the flow. “The landscape is
changing,” Grey said. “We’re kind of in this post-Latino phase.”

Despite that shift, videos of DREAMers confronting politicians have a
tendency to go viral, so politicians like Clinton should be prepared to
handle the ambushes, says Matt Barreto, the co-founder Latino Decisions.

“I don’t see anything too troubling in [Clinton’s] most recent exchange
with the DREAMers. She’s a politician, so it should be expected that she
gives political answers to things,” Barreto told msnbc. “But it’s a notice
to politicians that they need to be ready to discuss this issue …
[DREAMers] will come after you with their cell phone videos.”

And that’s especially true in Iowa, where an emphasis on retail politics
makes presidential candidates unusually accessible. Immigration dogged
Clinton here during her 2008 presidential run, when she came out against
drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants after weeks of vacillation.

At the moment, it looks like it would take a lot of unflattering videos to
derail Clinton. She’s extremely popular among Latinos, according to a
recent Latino Decisions poll, and has bested the field of likely Republican
presidential candidates by margins larger than when Obama defeated Mitt
Romney in 2012.

But the biggest concern for Democrats is not losing Latinos to Republicans,
but that the minorities will simply stay home on election day. Latinos tend
to vote in much lower percentages than whites, and polling shows Latino
enthusiasm for voting in general falling off dramatically after the White
House decision to delay its executive action.

And then there’s the prospect of someone like Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley
entering the race. He has been afraid to challenge the White House from the
left on immigration, and is appealing to many of the activists.

For Vargas, the purpose of their confrontations are simple: “We’re going to
make sure that Democrats don’t take Latinos for granted.”

*Politico: “Bill Clinton takes a shot at Netanyahu”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/bill-clinton-benjamin-netanyahu-110997.html>*

By Jonathan Topaz

September 16, 2014, 6:28 a.m. EDT

Former President Bill Clinton says he agrees that Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu is “not the guy” for a peace deal.

A C-SPAN video — first reported by Israeli newspaper Haaretz — shows the
42nd president at Sen. Tom Harkin’s Iowa steak fry on Sunday speaking with
an individual along a rope line.

“If we don’t force him to make peace, we will not have peace,” the man told
Clinton in the video.

“First of all, I agree with that,” Clinton responded, before discussing the
Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts he brokered during his administration.

“But Netanyahu is not the guy,” the unnamed person told Clinton, cutting in.

“I agree with that,” Clinton responded.

He and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton headlined Harkin’s 37th
and final steak fry in Indianola, Iowa. At the event, Hillary Clinton — the
likely frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, should
she choose to run — again said she was considering a bid.

The Obama administration and Netanyahu have tried to downplay reports of
increased animosity between the U.S. and Israel. Reports indicated that
Israel was unhappy with John Kerry, Clinton’s successor as secretary of
State, and his attempt to broker a peace deal with Turkey and Qatar. The
White House, for its part, criticized Israel for at least one shelling of a
United Nations facility in Gaza and had expressed concerns about the high
level of civilian casualties in the conflict.

In a interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, Hillary Clinton
praised Netanyahu for his flexibility in trying to compromise on a peace
deal. “I saw Netanyahu move from being against the two-state solution to
announcing his support for it, to considering all kinds of Barack-like
options, way far from what he is, and what he is comfortable with,” she
said.

*Wall Street Journal blog: Washington Wire: “Is She or Isn’t She Running?
Do Americans Really Care?”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/09/16/is-she-or-isnt-she-running-do-americans-really-care/>*

By Linda Killian

September 16, 2014, 12:32 p.m. EDT

The media frenzy over Hillary Clinton’s trip to Iowa Sunday for a
Democratic fundraiser no doubt leaves many Americans scratching their heads.

We haven’t held this year’s election, which voters seem decidedly unexcited
about, and yet political reporters can’t stop talking about the 2016
presidential race and the will-she-or-won’t-she question surrounding a
Clinton bid.

Let’s face it: She’s running. Her wink, wink, nudge, nudge references at
Sen.  Tom Harkin’s steak fry made that pretty clear.

Otherwise, why would she go back to Iowa for the first time in six years,
reliving the humiliation of not only losing the 2008 Iowa Democratic caucus
to Barack Obama but also coming in third behind John Edwards who will be
the answer to a political trivia question in a couple of years if he isn’t
already.

The media are obsessed with Hillary. Yes, like Beyoncé, Oprah and Madonna.
All you need is her first name for people to know who you are talking
about. She is good copy, as we used to say. Speculation on Hillary and her
momentous decision no doubt attracts eyeballs which is why media
organizations are probably hoping she draws this out as long as possible.

The American people, however, are not as breathlessly anticipating the
answer.

Many people believe it’s well past time for a woman president and Hillary
Clinton may be the logical choice to break that barrier. Plenty of others
think the torch should be passed to a new generation of political leaders.
And those who can’t stand the Clintons and would never consider voting for
a Democrat undoubtedly suspect all of the fuss is just another example of
liberal media bias.

What is clear is that there is a disconnect between voters’ concerns about
Washington’s ability to get things accomplished and their desire for action
by 2016 and the media’s obsession with Hillary Clinton’s version of Hamlet.