Hillary Clinton's disputed slam at the South

Hillary Clinton's campaign maintains that people who recall her making a pointedly derisive remark about Southern voters many years ago are not remembering it right.

The question was stirred by a column in The Huffington Post this week, in which Sam Stein wrote about an account of the comment published a few years back by an author:

"In January 1995, as the Clintons were licking their wounds from the 1994 congressional elections, a debate emerged at a retreat at Camp David. Should the administration make overtures to working-class, white Southerners who had all but forsaken the Democratic Party?'' Stein wrote. "The then-first lady took a less than inclusive approach.

"Screw 'em," she told her husband. "You don't owe them a thing, Bill. They're doing nothing for you; you don't have to do anything for them."

"The statement -- which author Benjamin Barber witnessed and wrote about in his book, "The Truth of Power: Intellectual Affairs in the Clinton White House" -- was prompted by another speaker raising the difficulties of reaching "Reagan Democrats','' Stein wrote." It stands in stark contrast...

to the attitude the New York Democrat has recently taken on the campaign trail, in which she has presented herself as the one candidate who understands the working-class needs.''

Clinton spokesman Phil Singer, on a conference call with reporters this morning, said, “I think this quote that has gotten some attention … differs from the recollection of other people who were in the room,'' Others who were there "not only don’t remember the comment being made, but also don’t reflect a meeting … reflecting the kind of tone and tenor that is implied ….

"If you look at the way that Sen. Clinton has lived her life, the kind of policies she has pursued,'' the spokesman said, "I think it is quite clear that she has advocated a progressive agenda aimed at lifting all Americans up… not just those in one region.’’

So, are they saying that the author, a noted political scientist, got the story wrong? Are they saying the author is wrong? "I’m not going to get into an argument with him or anyone else whose recollection may be different,'' Singer said. "We’ve given our answer on this.’’

-- Mark Silva

Mark Silva writes for the Swamp of the Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau

Comments

[Figgins]

When caught red-handed, deny, deny, deny.

[adam]

No Clinton has not been lifting the blue-collar worker up. She lobbied at least 5 times for the passage of NAFTA. She has not been so understanding of blue-collar needs. She just says she has. She thinks she just can rewrite history by saying so.

[robinia]

After watching last night's debate on ABC, and reviewing the recent polls in Pennsylvania, proves that the American people are not as "out of touch" as many presume.

The polls conducted saw that Pennsylvania knows that between the two candidates, Hillary -also in her opinion- would be the more experienced of the two. However, and this is a capital HOWEVER, an average of 6 of 10, those conducted felt Hillary was dishonest and lacked integrity. That is BIG!

Then, during the debates, she kept harping on a periphial issue regarding the connection of Obama and Rev.Wright...old, old, old...she fails to move on. She continues to question his ongoing "association" to Obama's connection with Rev. Wright. Someone needed to ask her if her "marriage" to an adulterous president would beg the same concern for those who view "infedility" in the same light as "racism".

Bill made a choice in morals, and Rev. Wright made a choice in using words. Actions and what comes out your mouth defines the character of ones thoughts and heart. (In Monica's case, it is what goes INTO ones' mouth that defined her soul).

Mr. Obama, take Hillary's advice when dealing with the likes of her campaign, "Screw em', they're doing nothing for you and you don't ow them anything."

That statement still proves that Bill has an edge over Hillary in understanding Monica Lewinsky's "working-class" needs. Screw her, Bill....

[Steve]

Maybe there was sniper fire during the meeting and she "mis-remembered" what she said!

[Keith]

Obviously Bill mis-heard her when she said "Screw 'em!"

[loup-bouc]

One day, a little girl awakened & found herself fatherless. She rubbed her eyes & saw her family villa destroyed — even the old adobe barn that bore a target her father painted when he taught her how to shoot.

For years after (disguising herself as a boy so men would not gang up on her), the poor girl trekked through many lands of all the continents — over mighty mountains & up Antarctic heights & through vast & arid salt-troughs & deep beneath the crusts of frozen seas (a mighty feat, since she tended to float) & across the great Sahara (& other deserts, like Washington DC) & around-and-about the half-timber houses & cobbled ways of Hornburg, Eisenach, Strasbourg, Warwick, and Rouen & into the gridworks of Manhattan's canyoned streets & the midnight of late June's Iceland lighted by a sun bright as pre-twilight's. Even did she brave the shell-strafed airports of Bosnia & Ulster...

Then one night — after downing a shot of rye & a beer pint chaser (for she was a real man's boy, a boy of the real folk) — she started to weep. “Where is father? Where is home?" She fainted & fell unconscious to the old village tavern's sawdust-covered floor.

When she woke she stood beneath a clearest sky above the clouds & peered into the vision of a great gold gate mammothing before her. Behind the gate sat a tallish gaunt man whose beard was untrimmed & mousey brown & who wore just a loincloth.

The little girl (still little despite her 59 years & still disguised as a boy) — the wee girl approached the gate & put her nose between two bars, so her eyes could be closest to the man seated inside. "Father?" the girl pleaded with cracking voice, cracking so it sounded like a near-pubescent boy's.

The tallish, gaunt, untrimmed-bearded, loin-cloth-wearing man rose & leaned forward slowly & hopefully, his face nearing the nose of the 59-year-old girl disguised as a boy. "Pinocchio?" the gaunt, tallish, untrimmed-bearded, loin-cloth-wearing man inquired with a whisper.