White House Strikes Back at Hillary, Al Gore
Jim Kouri, CPP
January 17, 2006
President George W. Bush's staff are mad as hell and they're not taking it anymore. They charged that the junior senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton was "out of bounds" when she said Monday that the Bush administration was "one of the worst" in US history and compared the Republican House to "a plantation."
The former First Lady said this at a rally in Harlem to honor Dr. Martin Luther King. Senator Clinton shared the stage with Rev. Al Sharpton and New York City Councilman Charles Barron who once said he'd like to walk up to a white man and slap him just for his own mental health.
During the daily press briefing, White House Press Secretary Scott McLellan was asked about sharp remarks from two nationally prominent Democrats, Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore, who spoke before a crowd at a MoveOn.Org event.
Gore called for an independent probe of the administration program that listened in without a warrant on Americans suspected of talking to terrorists overseas.
Asked about the former Clinton Administration Democrats' comments on the same day, McClellan said, "Well, I think we know, one tends to like or enjoy grabbing headlines; the other one sounds like the political season may be starting early."
Speaking at an event in Harlem honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., the senator said the GOP-controlled House of Representatives "has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about. It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard."
GOP leaders, including Congressman Peter King, were outraged over Clinton's comments.
They half-jokingly are saying Hillary forgot she was trying to re-invent herself as a moderate, but every once in a while the "real Hillary Clinton -- the radical leftist -- sufaces."
"I listened to the tape of her tirade and she's as shrill as ever. She sounds like an angry, old biddy,"says Sidney Francis a former New York detective and an African-American himself.
She also railed against the Bush administration, predicting it "will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country."
But it was the former Vice President who received the harshest criticism.
"If Al Gore is going to be the voice of the Democrats on national security matters, we welcome it," McClellan said in a swipe at the Democrat, who lost the 2000 election to Bush.
McClellan explained that the Clinton-Gore administration had engaged in warrantless physical searches, and he cited an FBI search of the home of CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames without permission from a judge. He said President Clinton's deputy attorney general, Jamie Gorelick, had testified before Congress that the president had the inherent authority to engage in physical searches without warrants.
"I think his hypocrisy knows no bounds," McClellan said of Gore.
Also, the Clinton-Gore Administration were responsible for the spy operation "Echelon" in which indeed Americans -- ever those without ties to terrorists -- had their phone conversations and e-mail monitored by the National Security Agency (NSA).
Gore said Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should name a special counsel to investigate the program, saying Gonzales had an "obvious conflict of interest" as a member of the Bush Cabinet as well as the nation's top law enforcement officer.
When Gore was the subject of an investigation -- for suspected illegal campaign contributions -- by his own Attorney General, Janet Reno, she refused to name an independent counsel to investigate him. Al Gore had stated that there was no conflict-of-interest in having Reno investigate him at the time.
The former First Lady said this at a rally in Harlem to honor Dr. Martin Luther King. Senator Clinton shared the stage with Rev. Al Sharpton and New York City Councilman Charles Barron who once said he'd like to walk up to a white man and slap him just for his own mental health.
During the daily press briefing, White House Press Secretary Scott McLellan was asked about sharp remarks from two nationally prominent Democrats, Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore, who spoke before a crowd at a MoveOn.Org event.
Gore called for an independent probe of the administration program that listened in without a warrant on Americans suspected of talking to terrorists overseas.
Asked about the former Clinton Administration Democrats' comments on the same day, McClellan said, "Well, I think we know, one tends to like or enjoy grabbing headlines; the other one sounds like the political season may be starting early."
Speaking at an event in Harlem honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., the senator said the GOP-controlled House of Representatives "has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about. It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard."
GOP leaders, including Congressman Peter King, were outraged over Clinton's comments.
They half-jokingly are saying Hillary forgot she was trying to re-invent herself as a moderate, but every once in a while the "real Hillary Clinton -- the radical leftist -- sufaces."
"I listened to the tape of her tirade and she's as shrill as ever. She sounds like an angry, old biddy,"says Sidney Francis a former New York detective and an African-American himself.
She also railed against the Bush administration, predicting it "will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country."
But it was the former Vice President who received the harshest criticism.
"If Al Gore is going to be the voice of the Democrats on national security matters, we welcome it," McClellan said in a swipe at the Democrat, who lost the 2000 election to Bush.
McClellan explained that the Clinton-Gore administration had engaged in warrantless physical searches, and he cited an FBI search of the home of CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames without permission from a judge. He said President Clinton's deputy attorney general, Jamie Gorelick, had testified before Congress that the president had the inherent authority to engage in physical searches without warrants.
"I think his hypocrisy knows no bounds," McClellan said of Gore.
Also, the Clinton-Gore Administration were responsible for the spy operation "Echelon" in which indeed Americans -- ever those without ties to terrorists -- had their phone conversations and e-mail monitored by the National Security Agency (NSA).
Gore said Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should name a special counsel to investigate the program, saying Gonzales had an "obvious conflict of interest" as a member of the Bush Cabinet as well as the nation's top law enforcement officer.
When Gore was the subject of an investigation -- for suspected illegal campaign contributions -- by his own Attorney General, Janet Reno, she refused to name an independent counsel to investigate him. Al Gore had stated that there was no conflict-of-interest in having Reno investigate him at the time.
Print
Email
