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International News Title: Audio tape of Hillary bemoaning fair election in 2006, wishes they had rigged it On September 5, 2006, Eli Chomsky was an editor and staff writer for the Jewish Press, and Hillary Clinton was running for a shoo-in re-election as a U.S. senator. Her trip making the rounds of editorial boards brought her to Brooklyn to meet the editorial board of the Jewish Press. The tape was never released and has only been heard by the small handful of Jewish Press staffers in the room. According to Chomsky, his old-school audiocassette is the only existent copy and no one has heard it since 2006, until today when he played it for the Observer. The tape is 45 minutes and contains much that is no longer relevant, such as analysis of the re-election battle that Sen. Joe Lieberman was then facing in Connecticut. But a seemingly throwaway remark about elections in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority has taken on new relevance amid persistent accusations in the presidential campaign by Clintons Republican opponent Donald Trump that the current election is rigged. Speaking to the Jewish Press about the January 25, 2006, election for the second Palestinian Legislative Council (the legislature of the Palestinian National Authority), Clinton weighed in about the result, which was a resounding victory for Hamas (74 seats) over the U.S.-preferred Fatah (45 seats). I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake, said Sen. Clinton. And if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win. Chomsky recalls being taken aback that anyone could support the ideaoffered by a national political leader, no lessthat the U.S. should be in the business of fixing foreign elections. Some eyebrows were also raised when then-Senator Clinton appeared to make a questionable moral equivalency. Regarding capturing combatants in warthe June capture of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas militants who came across the Gaza border via an underground tunnel was very much front of mindClinton can be heard on the tape saying, And then, when, you know, Hamas, you know, sent the terrorists, you know, through the tunnel into Israel that killed and captured, you know, kidnapped the young Israeli soldier, you know, theres a sense of like, one-upsmanship, and in these cultures of, you know, well, if they captured a soldier, weve got to capture a soldier. Equating Hamas, which to this day remains on the State Departments official list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, with the armed forces of a close American ally was not what many expected to hear in the Jewish Press editorial offices, which were then at Third Avenue and Third Street in Brooklyn. (The papers office has since moved to the Boro Park section of Brooklyn.) The use of the phrase these cultures is also a bit of a head-scratcher. According to Chomsky, Clinton was gracious, personable and pleasant throughout the interview, taking about an hour to speak to, in addition to himself, managing editor Jerry Greenwald, assistant to the publisher Naomi Klass Mauer, counsel Dennis Rapps and senior editor Jason Maoz. Another part of the tape highlights something that was relatively uncontroversial at the time but has taken on new meaning in light of the current campaignspeaking to leaders with whom our country is not on the best terms. Clinton has presented a very tough front in discussing Russia, for example, accusing Trump of unseemly ardor for strongman Vladimir Putin and mocking his oft-stated prediction that as president hed get along with Putin. Chomsky is heard on the tape asking Clinton what now seems like a prescient question about Syria, given the disaster unfolding there and its looming threat to drag the U.S., Iran and Russia into confrontation. Do you think its worth talking to Syriaboth from the U.S. point [of view] and Israels point [of view]? Clinton replied, You know, Im pretty much of the mind that I dont see what it hurts to talk to people. As long as youre not stupid and giving things away. I mean, we talked to the Soviet Union for 40 years. They invaded Hungary, they invaded Czechoslovakia, they persecuted the Jews, they invaded Afghanistan, they destabilized governments, they put missiles 90 miles from our shores, we never stopped talking to them, an answer that reflects her mastery of the facts but also reflects a willingness to talk to Russia that sounds more like Trump 2016 than Clinton 2016. Shortly after, she said, But if you say, theyre evil, were good, [and] were never dealing with them, I think you give up a lot of the tools that you need to have in order to defeat them
So I would like to talk to you [the enemy] because I want to know more about you. Because if I want to defeat you, Ive got to know something more about you. I need different tools to use in my campaign against you. Thats my take on it. A final bit of interest to the current campaign involves an articulation of phrases that Trump has accused Clinton of being reluctant to use. Discussing the need for a response to terrorism, Clinton said, I think you can make the case that whether you call it Islamic terrorism or Islamo-fascism, whatever the label is were going to give to this phenomenon, its a threat. Its a global threat. To Europe, to Israel, to the United States
Therefore we need a global response. Its a global threat and it needs a global response. That can be the, sort of, statement of principle
So I think sometimes having the global vision is a help as long as you realize that underneath that global vision theres a lot of variety and differentiation that has to go on. Its not clear what she means by a global vision with variety and differentiation, but whats quite clear is that the then-senator, just five years after her state was the epicenter of the September 11 attacks, was comfortable deploying the phrase Islamic terrorism and the even more strident Islamo-fascism, at least when meeting with the editorial board of a Jewish newspaper. In an interview before the Observer heard the tape, Chomsky told the Observer that Clinton made some odd and controversial comments on the tape. The irony of a decade-old recording emerging to feature a candidate making comments that are suddenly relevant to voters today was not lost on Chomsky, who wrote the original story at the time. Oddly enough, that story, headlined Hillary Clinton on Israel, Iraq and Terror, is no longer available on jewishpress.com and even a short summary published on the Free Republic offers a broken link that can no longer surface the story. I went to my bosses at the time, Chomsky told the Observer. The Jewish Press had this mindset that they would not want to say anything offensive about anybodyeven a direct quote from anyonein a position of influence because they might need them down the road. My bosses didnt think it was newsworthy at the time. I was convinced that it was and I held onto it all these years. Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, publisher of Observer Media. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top Page Up Full Thread Page Down Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 9.
#1. To: hondo68 (#0)
It's all rigged. Didn't you get the memo?
With the endless sheep sucking up the libtarded yella bullshit from MSM, 24/7, is pretty rigged if you ask me.
Trump is going to win. We are not as sheeplike as you think we are. We, the people, want what we want. What we want is not what the Republicans want - or else they'd be the majority. And it's not what the Democrats want - or they would be in the majority. There are more independents than there are members of either party. Nether party offers what we want, so we make an assessment each election of who gets us more of what we want than the other. Trump is offering more of what more of us want and need than Hillary, so we're going to vote for him and he will win. The media are Democrats, mostly. We know that. We know that Fox is Republican. We're not any stupider than the Russians were: they knew that Pravda and Izvestiya were not truthful on political things. Still, there was news in Pravda. You just had to filter it as you read it. You knew you were being lied to. Russians were cynical about their news. Most Americans are too. We read our Pravda (the New York Times), and watch our televised Izvestiya (CNN). We know it's "bent". We're not sheep. We're just individually weak - there is nothing any of us can do about it. Except on Election Day. Trump offers more to more of us than she does, so he will win. We're not as stupid as you think we are.
A (perhaps small) first step could be banning all Party identifiers on election ballots.
That has already started on the campaign adds, printed and TV. Not much info to identify the party. I noticed that a few years back.
#10. To: U don't know me (#9)
As Party brand value diminishes, it will be harder for the Democrats and the GOPe to push their "We've Alway Been At War With Eastasia" style arguments to voters.
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