http://www.hughhewitt.com/hillary-gaffes-let-minority-people-thats-minority-people-hold-viewpoint-terrorizes-majority-people/Hillary’s book tour is becoming a nightmare for her, a glimpse of just how wheedling, needling, schoolmarmish her presidency would be –one long cliched lecture on how to live like she thinks you should live. President Obama’s third term, in other words, with none of the fun sports teams events.
Four moments stood out in the CNN love-fest with Christiane Amanpour (transcript here) who actually seemed to run out of questions and really and truly asked Hillary if voting should be made mandatory in America, an expression of the inner social engineer which was not immediately swatted down by the would-be future president as an affront to the basic idea of liberty which animates the Declaration and Constitution.
Amanpour has long been a risible lefty dressed up as a journalist, but demanding forced voting instead of pursuing responses to the Administration’s failure to respond with force to the use of chemical weapons, the closure of Gitmo, the missing hours from the night of Benghaazi…well, a new low for a “journalist.” Contrast Amanpour’s shameless boosterism –on Benghazi, Amanpour began a question “And, obviously, you have been asked so many questions about this so many times…” which perfectly fits the left’s meme about the Gowdy Committee– with Bret Baier’s patient, focused professionalism and you realize why CNN’s brand is so broken, why Fox dominates the ratings, and why the repair job begun with Tapper is so enormous. Amanpour should be dismissed for allowing a moment that might have re-established CNN’s brand as serious journalism to degenerate into a Hillary rally.
Even with such a friendly questioner and audience, Hillary made four memorable remarks, each one of which will return to follow her throughout the campaign ahead.
First, in response Amanpour’s invitation to declare everything “asked and answered” on Benghazi, Hillary missed the opening given her to agree and denounce the “politicization” of the investigation and instead blessed the ongoing inquiries: “There are answers, not all of them, not enough, frankly. I’m still looking for answers,” which of course wholly and completely legitimatizes the Gowdy inquiry from the lips of the most obvious American witness who can be compelled to testify. (Emphasis added.)
Thank you, Madame Secretary. We all want answers, and when the Gowdy Committee subpoenas you, it can cite your response to Christiane as support for their demand.
Second, Hillary admitted her personal failure on the crucial effort to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq in 2011, an agreement that would have kept American troops in Iraq beyond 2011 and thus would have prevented the present meltdown which may turn into full-scale genocide:
DOROTHEA WOLFSON, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: Dorothea Wolfson from Johns Hopkins University.
Secretary Clinton, Iraq is in crisis and may fall to the terrorist group ISIS. Do you believe that President Obama was wrong in quitting Iraq, as he did in 2011? And what should the United States do moving forward?
CLINTON: Great question. And, obviously, it’s very much on everyone’s minds.
Let me just give a little bit of history, not too much, but context. When — President Bush decided, before President Obama became president, that we would leave Iraq in 2011, the United States would end its combat mission, unless the Iraqi government agreed to ask us to stay, under the same conditions that we have all around the world. It’s called a status of forces ingredient. I was involved in a lot of the efforts to come up with what our offer would be. And we made such an offer to then Prime Minister Maliki. And he would not accept the status of forces agreement.
Some now say, well, you should have made him or you should have — but that’s not the way it works. You have to — if you’re going to having American troops in harm’s way — and we knew Iraq would be quite dangerous for a long time, unpredictable, at the very least — you have to have the host government, in this case Iraq, say, OK, here’s what we want. We’re signing this agreement which will protect American soldiers.
We didn’t get that done. And I think, in retrospect, that was a mistake by the Iraqi government. And others are looking at that, including in Afghanistan now.
The second point I would make is, I think it’s imperative that the government of Iraq, currently led by Maliki, be much more inclusive, much more willing to share power, involve all the different segments of Iraq.
And I believe strongly that, if Maliki is not the kind of leader who can do that, then the Iraqi people need to think seriously about the kind of leader they need to try to unite Iraqis against what is a terrible, imminent threat from these most extreme terrorists. (Emphasis added.)
Now Clinton is a Gatling gun of blame here, beginning with W and including Maliki, the Iraqi people, and later President Obama, but the admission against interest is right there. “We didn’t get that done.” W did. She didn’t. Iraq is an inferno because of her and President Obama’s failure on the SOFA. Blame Maliki all you want. Superpowers get such things done. W got one done. Obama and Clinton could not get it done.
A third extraordinary moment came when Hillary tossed President Obama under the Syrian bus:
TATIANA SABAI: Hi, Secretary Clinton.
My name is Tatiana Sabai (ph).
And I’m wondering on the issue of Syria, what you believe the administration can and should do into engage and support what remains of the moderate opposition and take a more active role in addressing the humanitarian crisis?
CLINTON: Well, thank you for that. And I — I wrote a whole chapter about Syria in my book, “Hard Choices.” And I call it a wicked problem, because it is. And in the book, I obviously write about what is now publicly known, I recommended that we do more in the very beginning to support the moderate opposition, because I believed, at the time, that they would be overwhelmed by Assad’s military force and that they would open up the door to extremists coming in….
AMANPOUR: — your own ambassador, the person you appointed, Robert Ford, to Syria, resigned and he told me in his first interview that he did so in protest and on principle because he could no longer defend the Obama administration’s policy.
And we see where we are in the world because of this.
I want to ask you…
CLINTON: But let me just…
AMANPOUR: — should you have tried harder…
(LAUGHTER)
AMANPOUR: — you were surrounded by the top national security people…
CLINTON: Right. Right.
AMANPOUR: — on a mission to stop terrorism.
CLINTON: Right.
AMANPOUR: Should you have pushed harder?
CLINTON: We pushed very hard. But as I say in my book, I believe that Harry Truman was right, the buck stops with the president. (Emphasis added)
Translation: “Syria’s not my fault. It’s Obama’s fault.” Wonder how that is playing at 1600 tonight.
Finally, there is this bizarre, wholly anti-Constitutional statement in response to a question about the need to renew the ban on assault weapons and to ban high capacity clips:
I’m well aware that this is a hot political subject. And again, I will speak out no matter what role I find myself in. But I believe that we need a more thoughtful conversation. We cannot let a minority of people — and that’s what it is, it is a minority of people — hold a viewpoint that terrorizes the majority of people. (Emphasis added.)
The thought police have arrived, and their name is Hillary. Quite an interview. No wonder the book is a loser. The book tour is a circus, a fiasco, but quite an illumination of the many shortcomings of the woman who would be queen of what you do and what you think.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i_7La3VFfw
