Opinion: Excerpts from Hillary Clinton’s chat with Bill O’Reilly
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Fox News Channel has released excerpts of Hillary Clinton‘s interview with Bill O’Reilly, before the airing tonight of the first segment of the talk (Part 2 broadcasts Thursday). Not surprisingly,the first topic spotlighted was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Here’s the excerpt, which came after O’Reilly asked her: ‘You’re an American citizen. I’m an American citizen. He’s an American citizen, Rev. Wright. What do you think when you hear a fellow American citizen say that stuff about America? What do you think?’
“Well, I take offense at it. I think it’s offensive and outrageous. And, you know, I’m going to express my opinion, others can express theirs. But, you know, it is -- it is part of, you know, just an atmosphere that we’re in today where all kinds of things are being said.
‘And people have to, you know, decide what they believe. And I sure don’t believe the United States government was behind AIDS.â€
It makes perfect sense for Clinton to condemn Wright, especially on the AIDS issue. We wonder, though, if at some point in the interview she cut Barack Obama the type of slack John McCain did on Tuesday.
Here’s part of the quote McCain gave CNN on Tuesday:
‘I have made it very clear that I don’t believe that Rev. Wright reflects the views of Sen. Obama, and I don’t have anything more to say about it.’
(Update: Clinton told O’Reilly that Obama ‘made his views clear, finally, and did what he had to do.’)
Another Clinton excerpt seems to suggest ...
te... that she was making an effort to find common ground with conservative attitudes on a particularly touchy domestic issue.
Said she of the immigration system:
“It’s broken. I share the frustration. I have voted for tougher border controls. I’ve voted to put more money, more personnel, even a physical barrier where appropriate. I’m 100% in favor of tightening our borders, of enforcing the laws against employers, of going after the kind of abuses that we see in the job market, of making it clear that we have got to figure out what we’re going to do with people.â€
-- Don Frederick