Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Wednesday's wash

DIGGING DEEPER DEPT:
Remember the news about Hillary Clinton's rather angry outburst yesterday towards a Congolese student, when Mrs. Clinton mistakenly thought she was being questioned about her husband's views and snapped rather angrily in reply that she was not there to "channel" her husband? Well, clearly the best thing for her and her people to do is to simply and briefly apologize for this--I mean, she really needed to keep her cool in a situation like this--and when she does so, the whole thing will go away. But I see today that a State Department spokesman is digging deeper, blaming the student for the whole thing:
"State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Tuesday that Clinton reacted that way because of the question. "As the question was posed to her, it was posed in a way that said, 'I want to get the views of two men, but not you, the secretary of state,'" Crowley said.
The French-speaking student later said he had meant to say President Barack Obama, according to U.S. officials traveling with Clinton. It was unclear whether that meant he misspoke or the translator erred. "Perhaps he was nervous," Crowley said. Asked if Clinton had any regrets about losing her cool, Crowley tried to deflect the question, saying she was not available to get her thoughts."
Wow. Mrs. Clinton doesn't strike me as a stupid, unthinking woman at all. But sometimes she and her people do the silliest things.
By the way, Charles Krauthammer has an interesting take on why Mrs. Clinton lost it with this student:
"But I think part of it is also the venue. Here you have Richard Holbrooke running Afghanistan and Pakistan — the heart of our troubles in Asia. You have George Mitchell in the Middle East. You have envoys here and there, and she is the secretary of state, and she's sitting in the Congo, in the Congo? You've got Petraeus running Afghanistan. You've got Odierno running Iraq. She is totally marginalized, sitting in Kinshasa. I'm sure it is a great city — in fact, it's not — but the Congo? Africa is very low on the scale of important interests of the United States. She was supposed to be the president of the United States at this point. She was going to be queen of the world. Instead, Obama bestrides the world. He gives speeches in the great capitals, in Cairo — and she is in the Congo! You'd be upset, also."

HEALTH CARE INSURANCE REFORM UPDATE:
President Obama's still not doing so hot in the polls--for example, the latest from Gallup:
"Gallup sub-head: Americans disapprove of his handling of the issue, by 49% to 43%
Unwritten conclusion from Gallup result: Three weeks of a pretty relentless campaign-style effort on the president's part, trying to persuade the American public to back his plan, has had no effect."
And by the way, our liberal friends seem to want to make it sound like every single town hall forum on health care winds up being full of angry shouts and screams and people being drowned out. But actually, that's just not so:
Here's an example of a civil town hall meeting.
And here's another.
And another.

BASEBALL DIARY: frustrating--the Tigers lose last night, 7-5...but likely could have won had there not been a silly brawl which led to Rick Porcello being ejected with the Tigers leading, 3-0. It also didn't help that the Tigers failed to add on runs against a mediocre Red Sox pitcher...
Meanwhile, sure looked to me like the Texas Rangers were flat last night, and were shut out by the Indians 5-0. The Rangers had the bases loaded in the first but failed to score--and that was a huge moment in the game.
And the Cubs lost a tough one in 12 innings to the Phillies, 4-3. They've now lost 5 of 6 and are 3 games out of first place. They're playing very inconsistently right now.