Hillary Clinton's political shift to the right reached new territory this week as she warmly praised US President George W. Bush at a speech in Washington and defended her decision to let Rupert Murdoch sponsor a fundraising event on her behalf.
On the day that a New York Times poll found Bush's approval ratings at an all-time low of 31 percent, the leading contender for the Democratic party's 2008 presidential nomination praised the US president's "charm and charisma."
Asked to name a good thing about Bush, Clinton, a New York senator, said she had been "very grateful to him for his support for New York" after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Though the two had had "many disagreements" he had been "very willing to talk."
Clinton's re-fashioning is fast rendering her unrecognizable from the first lady who, eight years ago, accused a "vast rightwing conspiracy" of plotting against her husband, Bill Clinton.
Murdoch's Fox News channel has long been one of her most strident critics, but she said on Wednesday of the media mogul: "He's my constituent, and I'm very gratified that he thinks I'm doing a good job."
The fundraising will ostensibly be for Clinton's senate re-election campaign, but she is so far ahead in that contest as not to need the support of the only Murdoch forum that could make much of a difference, the tabloid the New York Post.
Her courting of Murdoch is part of a grander strategy, mirrored by statements designed to portray her as no less pugilistic on terrorism than Bush.
"This shows her to be a consensus-builder, someone who's not polarizing," Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic party consultant, said.
"The rightwing take on her has always been that she's polarizing. Certainly, there will be people on the left that may not like this relationship [with Murdoch] but the fact that she could forge it speaks well of her ability to build consensus ... To be president, you've got to win."
"They don't tolerate shrieking and they don't tolerate polarizers," he said.
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
RSS