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Insider Report: Clintonistas Abandoning Hillary Special From NewsMax's Most Informed Sources
Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories): 1. Clintonistas Abandoning Hillary A number of Clinton administration officials have shunned Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign for the presidency and are instead working with her rivals for the Democratic nomination in 2008. Among the highest-ranking defectors, former Commerce Secretary William Daley is backing Sen. Barack Obama; top Clinton political aide Douglas Sosnik is advising Sen. Christopher Dodd; and Al Gore's former Chief of Staff Ronald Klain is in the camp of Sen. Joe Biden, The New York Sun reports. Former White House counsel Abner Mikva is also backing Obama. "I knew Obama before I went to the White House," Mikva told the Sun. "I have a high regard for Hillary. I think Barack will be a better candidate and has a better chance of winning." Other former Clinton administration officials in the Obama camp include Michael Froman, a former Treasury Department official; White House congressional liaison Broderick Johnson; former Treasury aide Karen Kornbluh; ex-White House health policy aide Devorah Adler; Anthony Lake, who was a national security adviser to President Clinton; and Susan Rice, a former White House adviser on Africa policy.
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Ex-Clinton administration figures who are working for John Edwards' presidential campaign include Clinton speechwriter Jonathan Prince, White House spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri, and National Security Council staffer Miles Lackey. Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack also has some former Clinton talent on his staff. Hillary spokesman Howard Wolfson downplayed the loss of former Clinton loyalists, telling the Sun: "We are very pleased with the overwhelming support and encouragement Sen. Clinton has gotten from administration alums." Asked about the defectors, Wolfson said: "All good folks and we wish them well." Editor's Note:
2. Whom Will Pelosi Back in '08? If the race for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008 comes down to a contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could prove crucial. Pelosi is not endorsing any candidate right now — and may never make an official endorsement, according to Josephine Hearn of Politico.com. Both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama aided House Democrats in the 2006 elections and helped Pelosi become speaker, and both distinguished themselves with their fund-raising efforts for other Democrats. "But some question whether Pelosi would ever support Sen. Clinton given their deep differences over the Iraq war," Hearn writes. "Clinton voted for it in 2002. Pelosi voted against it . . . Obama has hewed closer to Pelosi in opposing the Iraq war." Pelosi is being guarded for the moment. Asked for her opinion of the Democratic field, she said simply: "I think they're all great." Editor's Note:
3. Ruling: Kerry Speech Broke Law Sen. John Kerry drew chuckles during the 2004 presidential campaign when he was photographed wearing a "bunny suit" and climbing inside a space shuttle orbiter. A "bunny suit" is protective attire that prevents dust, skin and hair particles from entering a clean environment, and is required by NASA for anyone coming in close proximity to a space shuttle. Now it turns out that the Office of Special Counsel, a federal watchdog agency, isn't chuckling over Kerry's visit to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where he was allowed to deliver a political stump speech and conduct a rally that was broadcast to Space Center employees. The agency has ruled that beaming the presidential campaign rally to government employees all over the Space Center violated laws prohibiting electioneering using Federal resources, the Web site floridatoday.com reported. However, the only punishment called for by the agency was for the Space Center to educate employees and contractors about political campaigning laws. Editor's Note:
4. Russian Foreign Minister Hits the Tracks Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov landed in New York last week and spent some personal time in Manhattan before an official visit with President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington on Thursday. The twist to Lavrov's latest U.S. visit is not his trip to D.C., but how he got there — Amtrak. Why? New York's Port Authority — which operates the region's three airports — had jacked up the storage fees to park the Russian's plane at JFK during his stay in New York, NewsMax's United Nations correspondent Stewart Stogel reports. Russian sources told NewsMax that Moscow felt it was being price gouged by the Port Authority. So it was decided that Lavrov's plane would drop him off in New York and then fly to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, where Uncle Sam would take care of the Russians and their aircraft free of charge. Then Lavrov could travel from New York to Washington on the speedy Acela Express — a 2 1/2-hour journey, with the Russian taking an entire train car. Editor's Note:
5. Frank Rich: TV News Is 'Fictionalized' Today's TV news programs have more in common with television miniseries than with factual reporting, says New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Rich. "What used to be truth has been replaced by something that looks like reality, but is often fictionalized," Rich — a former theater critic — told a gathering at The Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, Fla., on Jan. 30. It all began with the highly successful 1977 miniseries "Roots," which romanticized history, and that set the example for later distortions of the facts by CNN when it covered the first Gulf War as 24/7 entertainment, according to Rich, who called that coverage a "mediathon." "It made the Gulf War the first war in American history with its own theme music, its own logo, and a cast of, if not thousands, hundreds," Rich said in remarks reported by the Palm Beach Daily News. Because of a news blackout, actual journalism was scarce, and instead "experts came on and said whatever they wanted based on idle speculation and government officials came on and said whatever they wanted us to hear," Rich told the gathering. Other mediathons have included the O.J. Simpson trial and the deaths of Princess Diana and John Kennedy Jr., according to Rich. The evolution of news into entertainment — driven largely by the profit motive — and the distortion of facts to serve political ends "is not a Republican problem," Rich added. "It's a cultural problem. The Democrats are just as eager to take this entertainment-over-reality approach and exploit it." Editor's Note:
6. Polling Pioneer Quits Firm A key member of the market research and polling firm Penn, Schoen & Berland is leaving the company he cofounded 31 years ago. Doug Schoen said he is retiring to become a contributor for the Fox News Channel and to write a book about creating what he called "the most successful political consulting firm in recent memory." The company was a pioneer in the use of "exit polls," and played a key role in shaping President Bill Clinton's recovery from the low points of his first term and his re-election in 1996, according to the Web site Politico.com, which called Schoen's partnership with co-founder Mark Penn the "polling dream team." Penn, Schoen & Berland's clients include Bill Gates and Tony Blair, and the company was instrumental in Michael Bloomberg's election as New York City mayor in 2001 and his re-election four years later. Mark Penn, who remains with the firm, is Sen. Hillary Clinton's main pollster and one of her most influential advisors. Editor's Note:
7. We Heard . . . THAT a California assemblyman has introduced legislation to end California taxpayers' investments in Iran. At present, the California Public Employees Retirement System and the California State Teachers Retirement System invest in dozens of firms that do business in Iran. The bill introduced on Jan. 29 by Assemblyman Joel Anderson, a Republican from the San Diego area, would require the two retirement systems to sell or transfer any investments in a company with business operations in the terrorist-sponsoring nation.
In a statement, the Center for Security Policy's Divest Terror Initiative said it is working to promote similar legislation in other states, noting that taxpayers' investments "are being used to indirectly fund the nations who support al-Qaida and Hezbollah and other terrorist groups which have been murdering Americans." THAT morning host Don Imus' viewership on MSNBC shot up 47 percent in January compared to January 2006, edging out CNN's "American Morning" show, 356,000 viewers to 355,000, the trade publication Variety reports. "Lou Dobbs Tonight" on CNN also showed a healthy gain in January, rising 51 percent in total viewers compared to last year and 98 percent in the 25-to-54 demographic. THAT a Hollywood filmmaker has launched a Web site attacking John McCain, a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. Robert Greenwald's site, TherealMcCain.com, features video clips showing the Arizona senator expressing what Greenwald considers contradictory views on the Iraq war, gay marriage, and other issues. Greenwald is a Hollywood veteran whose early directorial work included such TV movies as "Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold" in 1978 and "The Burning Bed" in 1984. But more recently he's turned to documentaries critical of, among others, Wal-Mart ("Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price") and U.S. policy in Iraq ("Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers").
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