Posts Tagged ‘Hillary Clinton’

This is a bit late, but I just found the Washington Post Investigative Unit’s list of the Top Ten Scandals of 2008, and it’s a doozy.

They are all good and memorable scandals which will be talked about for years, although I would beg to differ. Take Hillary Clinton’s Bosnia sniper fire story off the list and replace it with Sarah Palin’s $180,000 wardrobe funded by the Republican National Committee. One was a case of Walter Mitty-style fabulism which provided for a moment of humor once the reality of the story was verified and little else. The other raised profound questions about judgment and management of campaign funds, and by extension the potential decisions John McCain and Sarah Palin would have made in the White House if they had been elected.

With a new administration, an expanded Democratic majority in Congress, and a full blown financial crisis, expect 2009 to be another bombshell and scandal-rich year for the press to investigate.

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turkeys
Just in time for Thanksgiving, CNN’s Bill Schneider has put out his annual list of the biggest political turkeys. I would add to this list Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric, Hillary Clinton not competing in caucus states during the primary, and Bill Clinton’s criticisms of Barack Obama before and after the South Carolina primary.

statedepartment1

The Boston Globe is reporting that John Kerry is expected to take over as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the new congress, with Joe Biden vacating the spot to assume the vice presidency.  If this is true, it means he will not be Secretary of State (Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson have interviewed for the job, Richard Holbrooke has lobbied for it).

Newsweek is out with the first installments of their traditional election special project, which is an absolute must-read chronicle of the public and private drama in the Obama, Clinton and McCain campaigns.

Earlier, I posted a link to Politico’s list of the biggest gaffes of the campaign, while adding my own to the list. TIME Magazine has put together a much more thorough version of that list, which is well worth reading.

I had forgotten so many of these gaffes, and how they dominated the campaign cycle at one point or another. My revised list of big gaffes, based on political fallout or humor:

John McCain’s “Fundamentals of our economy” comment
Hillary Clinton ducking sniper fire in Bosnia
Phil Gramm’s “Nation of whiners” comment
Barack Obama’s 57 states comment
Mark Penn’s Colombian deal
Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric
Barack Obama’s “Bitter” comment
Sarah Palin’s wardrobe
Joe Biden’s international test
Sarah Palin’s prank call
Mitt Romney: “Who Let the Dogs Out”
Barack Obama’s “spread the wealth” comment

Politico compiles the best of the 2008 cycle. They focused on the two presidential nominees, but I would expand the list to include some of the other characters we’ve seen in the 2008 race.

ONE-LINERS
Joe Biden hits Rudy Giuliani: “A noun, a verb and 9/11”
Sarah Palin on the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull.
Bob Casey at the DNC: “That’s not a maverick, that’s a sidekick.”
Mike Huckabee: “Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office.”
John McCain on following Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell.

GAFFES
Sarah Palin’s entire interview with Katie Couric
Hillary Clinton invoking the assassination of Bobby Kennedy during the primaries
Barack Obama’s “bitter” comments at a fundraiser
Carly Fiorina saying John McCain and Sarah Palin couldn’t run Hewlett Packard
John McCain: “Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran”

The Times of London puts together this list of political endorsements that the candidates didn’t really want.