Clinton earmark requests: You ask, we don't tell

[IndianaGreen]

Clinton earmark requests: You ask, we don't tell

Close observers of yesterday's reports on the efforts of McCain and Obama to get Sen. Clinton to disclose her earmark requests going back to 2001 may have noticed a strange thing about the statement her office issued at the end of the day.

It said all manner of things about earmarks, and moratoriums, and funding, and accountability. But it never said whether she would disclose her earmark requests going back to 2001. (See after the jump).

We spent today back-and-forthing a few more times by e-mail with her press office, and the exchanges made it pretty clear that the oversight was intentional. The plan seems to be that since the NY press has never obsessed over Hillary's earmark requests, she can safely not release them as long as she doesn't say she won't and doesn't say why she won't.

Without torturing the details, the one thing we learned is that she plans to be absolutely transparent about stuff she hasn't done yet. Per spokesman Phillippe Reines: "We are now going above and beyond...the common practice on Capitol Hill and releasing all of our requests going forward."

If it's a good thing to do in the future, why wouldn't it be equally good to do for the past? That would be a great question, if we were dealing with a Senator who answered them.

http://weblogs.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/politics/blog/2008/03/clinton_earmark_requests_you_a.html

[Jensen]

1. What is sad for me and I would hope for all of US Dems is that we have suffered with almost 8 years

of behind the doors, under the radar etc and we should deserve/demand a candidate that will give us the transparency that we have demanded from this * administration or claimed to have wanted.
Sen Clinton just as Sen Obama better be vetted before a nomination!

[IndianaGreen]

2. The Clintons are as secretive as the Bushes

and Hillary's claim that she has been "fully vetted" is only a smokescreen.

[Jensen]

3. You are probably right and I can't stand another 8 years of the same B.S.!

[City Lights]

4. So she's for transparency before she was against it?

And even though she's for it looking forward, she's against it looking back. :crazy:

:thumbsdown:

She's as phony as a three-dollar bill.

[tpsbmam]

5. If they have nothing to hide, why are they hiding everything?

Said often about the Bush and his administration. HRC is really hurting herself with this crap -- as those above said, it's too creepily like Shrub to make me even remotely comfortable. As much as I'm not crazy about parts of HRC's voting record, I was truly undecided until well into this election season. I didn't support either HRC or Obama at first and as the field was winnowed, I remained undecided. And then Hillary Clinton started talking about superdelegates deciding who the nominee should be, seating the delegates from a state where her opponent had followed their agreement and taken his name off of the ballot, etc etc. Her refusal to release her tax information, the library/foundation donor information, and now this just confirms for me that my decision to support Obama was correct. All of it is really beyond the pale IMO.