Noticeably absent from Hillary Clinton’s re-announcement speech on Saturday was any articulation of her position on the trade deal working its way through Congress.
On ABC’s “This Week” Sunday, host George Stephanopoulos pressed Clinton adviser Joel Benenson to answer a rather simple question — whether his candidate supports giving “Fast Track” authority to the president on trade deals.
Benenson tried to dismiss the debate as insider Washington “political jockeying,” and said she’s waiting to see what the final deal looks like.
Then he coughed up this gem: “She wants to see the final deal, she wants to make sure it protects American workers, and that’s what she’s fighting for.”
Hillary Clinton made a big deal on Saturday about being a “fighter” — which, as my colleague Byron York noted, is a rehash of her message from her 2008 campaign. But what does this really mean in practice?
To recap, right now there’s a major trade fight, pitting unions and progressive activists against President Obama. Most people would see “fighting” in this case as staking out a clear position, and adding her prominent voice to the debate while it’s ongoing, in hopes that the final deal is closer to reflecting what she says she believes about protecting American workers. Instead, she’s “fighting” by sitting at ringside and dispatching surrogates to promise that she’ll take a position after the fight is over.
Is there any more concise encapsulation of the absurdity of Hillary Clinton’s campaign?
