In reporting on who will replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate in Tuesday’s Washington Post, reporter Keith Richburg unspooled a weird sentence about someone being a conservative Democrat. "There is also pressure to replace Clinton with a woman; one name being mentioned is Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, a conservative Blue Dog Democrat from Albany."
Gillibrand may be an up-and-coming talent and may have joined the Blue Dog Democrats, but she cannot be described as "conservative" based on her first year of votes in the House. For her 2007 votes, the American Conservative Union gave her a single-digit score of eight and the liberal Americans for Democratic Action classified her as a nearly perfect 95 percent liberal.
At the liberal Daily Beast website, Benjamin Sarlin takes this false advertising to an extreme, calling Gillibrand the 95-percent liberal a "bizarro version of Sarah Palin." She has been graded with an A by the National Rifle Association. But Gillibrand, who identifies herself as a Catholic, was also endorsed by NARAL Pro-Choice New York, which praised her as a legislator who "demonstrated a passionate commitment to our cause and the kind of impressive leadership our movement needs in Washington."
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Pelosi Light
December 2, 2008 - 10:18 ET by Rusty WeissBeing from the area, I can assure you that Gillibrand is anything but a conservative. When last I checked, Gillibrand had voted along the same lines as Nancy Pelosi nearly 98% of the time. That makes her nothing more than Pelosi Light. And considering how bad Pelosi Heavy is, it is exponentially worse with Pelosi Light.
Was Gillibrand equally as Conservative in her views of homeland security when she followed the lead of fellow Democrats voting to hinder our nation’s intelligence gathering laws about a year ago?
The RESTORE Act of 2007, which was heavily supported by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, reversed the significant progress made in the Protect America Act, by prohibiting timely surveillance of terror groups. Instead RESTORE required the Intelligence Community to obtain a FISA court order to listen into terrorist communications.
The act essentially undermined our nation’s security. It really should be no surprise that Gillibrand would follow Pelosi like a loyal lapdog, as she has done so on almost 98% of her votes, paralleling the Speaker’s liberal agenda at nearly every turn.
This is merely one example in a long history, of course.
But, Conservative my foot...
Rusty
Hillary's Replacement
December 2, 2008 - 12:59 ET by shades2I am not exactly pleased about Hillary taking the Secretay of State position. She finally could have been head of The Appropriations Committee, been able to finally do something for New York State (Carpetbagger as she is), and now someone else will be named to the post. Bill Clinton's name has been thrown around as a replacement.....gee.... Chelsea's too young? Guess we'll be dealing with that someday.
I didn't realize change meant rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic
Its 1984... for real...
December 2, 2008 - 10:26 ET by AJBIts NEWSPEAK, as coined (if I remember correctly) by George Orwell in his book 1984. If you change the name of something to describe it as what it is not, that's NEWSPEAK. Certainly there's a lot of that going around. TRUTH IN MEDIA, for one, CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRAT, HONEST POLITICIAN, CHRISTIAN OBAMA. Any more out there?
Only the beginning
December 2, 2008 - 11:15 ET by KC MulvilleNow that Obama has won the biggest election of all, he is sure to inspire others to follow in his footsteps. By that I mean, while the public is watching carefully, present yourself as centrist and avoid being tagged with anything. Then, after the election, do whatever you want, because the media isn't going to throw history in your face.
However, recently I watched a Charlie Rose interview with George Will, right after the 1994 elections. It's amazing to remember that at that moment, Bill Clinton was already judged a failure. Rose asked Will why. Will said (basically) that during his election, Clinton had hoodwinked America into believing that he was going to be one kind of president, but then quickly descended into a typical liberal. And, Will added, America resented that deception.
History repeats. What else can it do?
For WaPo Extreme Leftist do not exist
December 2, 2008 - 20:38 ET by needle"There is also pressure to replace Clinton with a woman; one name being mentioned is Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, a conservative Blue Dog Democrat from Albany."
“a conservative Blue Dog Democrat”? (cough, cough) I guess it works like this: Anyone to the right of Jiang Qing is a conservative. This remark sure helps to calibrate the political outlook of Keith Richburg and the bias of the Washington Post.
Impunitas semper ad deteriora invitat.