Clinton's '35 years of change' omits most of her career

[SoFlaJet]

By Matt Stearns
Posted on Sunday, February 3, 2008

WASHINGTON — To hear Hillary Clinton talk, she's spent her entire career putting her Yale Law School degree to work for the common good.

She routinely tells voters that she's "been working to bring positive change to people's lives for 35 years." She told a voter in New Hampshire: "I've spent so much of my life in the nonprofit sector." Speaking in South Carolina, Bill Clinton said his wife "could have taken a job with a firm ... Instead she went to work with Marian Wright Edelman at the Children's Defense Fund."

The overall portrait is of a lifelong, selfless do-gooder. The whole story is more complicated — and less flattering.

Clinton worked at the Children's Defense Fund for less than a year, and that's the only full-time job in the nonprofit sector she's ever had. She also worked briefly as a law professor.

Clinton spent the bulk of her career — 15 of those 35 years — at one of Arkansas' most prestigious corporate law firms, where she represented big companies and served on corporate boards.

Neither she nor her surrogates, however, ever mention that on the campaign trail. Her campaign Web site biography devotes six paragraphs to her pro bono legal work for the poor but sums up the bulk of her experience in one sentence: "She also continued her legal career as a partner in a law firm."


http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/26377.html

[Windy]

1. great article. A little dose of truth to combat the spin and fudging that is indicative of HRC

and her campaign.

[antigop]

2. And what did she do at that law firm? Here is the Rose Law Firm:

From the Rose Law Firm website:

http://www.roselawfirm.com/practice/management.asp

We also advise clients on union avoidance, organizing campaigns and union representation elections. Our specific areas of expertise include:

* Union organization, collective bargaining, arbitrations and NLRB charges
* Employment discrimination and fair employment litigation
* OSHA
* Employment contracts, trade secrets and covenants not to compete
* Affirmative action
* Wage and hour issues
* Personnel handbooks
* Supervisory training
* Compliance reviews and training
* Mediations
* Civil rights
* EEOC
* Harassment/retaliation
* Whistle-blowing

[antigop]

3. The head of WalMart's legal department worked for Hillary at the Rose Law Firm

From the WalMart website:
http://walmartstores.com/GlobalWMStoresWeb/navigate.do?catg=540&contId=6235

Thomas A. Mars

Tom oversees the Legal Department, which is responsible for handling all legal matters affecting the Company in its domestic and foreign markets. Tom has served as Wal-Mart's General Counsel since May 2002.

In 1986, Tom became an associate of the Rose Law Firm, where he worked for Senator Hillary Clinton in the firm's litigation section.

[aquart]

4. Just like Michele Obama?

That's what she does, isn't it?

But, of course, we're not voting for Michele. And she would never run for the Senate. And Barack would never step up and support her if she did.

But it reminds me of all those women who have worked the best jobs they could find so that their husbands could go to medical school, or law school, or engage in lower paying public service. In my own family, my great grandmother supported her husband and children as a midwife, because my great grandfather was a "learner." All those women who subordinated themselves and their own dreams so their husbands could pursue theirs.

That certainly is a mark against them, isn't it?

[niceypoo]

5. There is a direct link between ignorance of Hillary and opposition to Hillary

Do 10 minutes of research sometime, her http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton">experience is vast and far reaching.

[bluemegan]

6. I think being a first lady does not count as experience

I would wait until I have been in office doing something to brag about experience.