Wisconsin Ads

Hillary Clinton:

Barack Obama:


UPDATE: She won't let this drop. Hillary's new ad says that Obama is "hiding behind false attack ads."



Yet it fails to cite anything "false" in Obama's response. Then, it goes on to proceed with some whoppers of its own. For instance, she says that he might "raise the retirement age and cut social security benefits." Compare that with his actual statements, such as this one from September: "I do not want to cut benefits or raise the retirement age. I believe there are a number of ways we can make Social Security solvent that do not involve placing these added burdens on our seniors." Or this one from November: "I wont cut benefits- it isn't appropriate to raise the retirement age." Also note that his Social Security plan says nothing of the sort.

I think that at this point, it's safe to say that Hillary Clinton is just a bald-faced liar. Clinton has consistently misrepresented Barack Obama's positions throughout the election. She has distorted his ethics reform bill, his position on the PATRIOT Act, his Rezko ties, his "present" votes, his position on abortion, his statements about diplomatic preconditions, and his position on the Iraq war. This is just par for the course.

UPDATE II: Obama has a new response ad, titled "Desperate." I'm glad that he's not letting her ads go unchallenged. One thing that surprised me about this one though is how it says Obama has a plan to protect social security benefits and the retirement age while Hillary doesn't. Indeed he does have a social security plan on his website (available here), which counters her false claim that he would cut benefits and raise the retirement age. But Obama's ad goes a step further and states that Clinton does not have a social security plan herself. I looked at her website's Issues section, where all of her plans and proposals should be, and I couldn't find anything. I'm sorta inclined to believe that she must have something somewhere. The long-term solvency of social security seems like a rather huge issue to just overlook. Am I just missing it? And if not, doesn't that undercut her argument that Obama is the one who lacks specifics? Is this jut like her health care plan, where she criticizes Obama's plan and yet doesn't explain how she would enforce her own mandates?

UPDATE III: Here's an interesting fact: Hillary Clinton refused to participate in even a single primary debate during her 2006 Senate race. Then she agreed to just two against her Republican rival. But she loves them now.

UPDATE IV: Hillary Clinton responds on her website and claims that she does have a social security plan. Unfortunately, all she has to back this up is one comment she made in October, saying that we need to "return to fiscal responsibility" before we address long-term concerns such as social security, and another comment she made stating that we need to figure something out on a bipartisan basis ("I'm going to see what the bipartisan members are going to come up with"). I don't know if this adds up to a "plan." Of course "fiscal responsibility" is important (so says the woman who tried to earmark $1 million for a Woodstock museum), and of course we should allow for input in a bipartisan manner. But none of that amounts to a "plan," and there is nothing at all "inaccurate" about saying that she lacks a long-term social security plan. Her approach is something along the lines of "let's be fiscally responsible and figure something out by working together."

What makes this particularly maddening is that her campaign has been pressing the "Obama just gives speeches and lacks specifics like me" meme pretty hard.