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Edwards Issues Video Critical of Clinton
By Christine Hauser
The Edwards campaign is hitting both ends of the spectrum with their media releases. It followed up the “Heroes” television commercial release, replete with flags fluttering and working-class images, with a new video, emailed today to reporters, called “The Politics of Parsing” and featuring images of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The 1:23-minute video has a split screen showing Senator Clinton answering questions on Iraq, Social Security and immigration during Tuesday night’s debate. At the beginning, white letters appear on a black background, spelling out a question about whether there is some double-talk going on.
One example: “I stand for ending the war in Iraq, bringing our troops home,” Senator Clinton said in one scene. And cut to the next quote: “We are going to have troops remaining there guarding our embassy, we may have a continuing training mission, and we may have a mission against Al Qaeda in Iraq.”
Set to music from the “Blue Danube” waltz, the video ends with these sentences: “We still don’t know the answer. That’s the politics of parsing.”
In his stump speeches, Mr. Edwards often draws a sharp distinction between his positions and those of Senator Clinton’s. But there appears to be fresh momentum in highlighting those differences after Tuesday night’s debate.
Yesterday, the Edwards campaign’s communications director, Chris Kofinis, sent out an email to reporters trying to counter what was described as Senator Clinton’s “damage control” efforts. The quote was forwarded to me again today when I asked about the new video:
“All the distractions in the world won’t undo the fact that on Tuesday night millions of Americans saw John Edwards speak honestly and directly, while Senator Clinton once again took multiple positions on multiple issues,” Mr. Kofinis said in the statement. “We understand that the Clinton campaign isn’t happy about that, but instead of smoke and mirrors, how about some truth-telling? Forty-eight hours after the debate, we have lots of excuses, but we still don’t have a yes or no answer to a yes or no question.”
“That’s not the politics of piling on, it’s the politics of parsing,” Mr. Kofinis said, referring to Mrs. Clinton’s post-debate video about how her rivals attacked her. “After seven years of George Bush, the American people deserve better; they deserve the truth.”
(The term “parsing” plays a particularly evocative role here: It became part of the routine lexicon during the impeachment scandal of her husband, Bill Clinton, who was skewered for answers like — well, it depends on what the meaning of “is is,” if you recall.)
In response to Mr. Edwards’s new video, Phil Singer, a Clinton campaign spokesman, emailed: “In 2004, John Edwards said ‘If you are looking for the candidate that will do the best job of attacking the other Democrats, I am not your guy.’ But now that his campaign has stalled, he’s launching false attacks on his fellow Democrats. Voters will certainly be asking whether Mr. Edwards’ pledges to be positive in 2004 were anything more than |
