As if Hillary Clinton doesn’t have enough problems being questioned and derided by Republicans, the VRWC, the FBI and a vast array of conservative groups, now she’s catching flack from her own party. No, I don’t mean Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, though they’re getting in their own shots as well. This time it’s coming from former New York Governor and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. (Some of you may better recall the gentleman by his more famous moniker, Client Number Nine.)
I’m unsure why anyone is bothering interviewing Spitzer at this point because his career (at least in electoral politics) has been well and thoroughly flushed by now, but David Axelrod saw fit to sit down with Spitzer for his new podcast, The Axe Files, which he kicked off at the end of September. (You can get the entire interview under discussion at that link. It’s the most recent episode.) As the conversation rolled on, David got Spitzer talking about Hillary Clinton during the 2008 campaign and the former governor opened up on her for derailing a drivers license for illegal immigrants program that he was working on. (The Daily Caller)
Ex-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer made a surprise revelation on Thursday when he said during an interview that the 2008 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign pressured him to drop a proposal to grant driver’s licenses to illegal aliens because it put then-Sen. Clinton in a tough political position.
“You can’t be a presidential candidate — as I think Hillary Clinton is — who has shifted position on every major issue leading up to this campaign,” Spitzer told former Obama aide David Axelrod during an interview for “The Axe Files” podcast.
An example of that vacillation, he said, was Clinton’s flip-flop on the issue of driver’s licenses for illegal aliens. Clinton’s public shift derailed her campaign, leading her team to demand that Spitzer table the issue.
While the quote made it sound as if Spitzer was unsure if Clinton is a presidential candidate, he clarifies as the interview wears on. It’s not just that he was pressured to drop his license program which annoys him, but the fact that Clinton had been a big supporter of his until the proposal went south in the polls. And that’s only one area where he noticed her changing her opinion repeatedly.
In one of the more infamous moments of those debates, Clinton’s fellow candidates called her out on her inconsistent position.
“She literally gave three different answers in 30 seconds,” recalled Spitzer, who acknowledged during the interview that he is supporting former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley for president. Spitzer is also dating O’Malley’s campaign manager.
“She waffled and waffled and waffled,” Spitzer added.
Asked why Clinton changed her position, Spitzer said “it was a politically tough issue.”
So I suppose this could be written off as election season maneuvering now that we know that Spitzer is not only supporting O’Malley but dating his campaign manager according to this report. That’s a little odd in and of itself because last time I checked, O’Malley’s campaign manager was Dave Hamrick. Also, the New York press has been reporting for a while that Spitzer has been dating Lis Smith, who is on Bill de Blasio’s payroll, so the article may be in error on that point. (I’m not trying to knock Spitzer here if he is actually gay, but he was married to a woman and his now infamous hooker friend certainly appeared to be a girl, as is Lis Smith, though she’s probably young enough to be his grandchild.)
Still, Spitzer’s point is a valid one. Not only have we seen a history of Clinton flip flopping on every issue under the sun, but this charge comes from her own party. It also suggests that not only was she willing to change her positions as the political winds shifted, but that she was ready to force others to adjust their own policies just to avoid any awkward moments on the campaign trail.
Small wonder that the first word Americans associate with Hillary Clinton is “liar.”
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