Reply #49: TRANSCRIPT UP NOW !!! [View All]

<snip>

KURTZ: Now David Folkenflik, I have a different piece of tape for you. Hillary Clinton doing some counter-programming by going on ABC's "This Week." And in her conversation with George Stephanopoulos, it turned to free trade and the NAFTA agreement passed by the Clinton administration. And then Hillary Clinton brought up something about Stephanopoulos' previous employment.

Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: You remember this because George did work in that' 92 campaign. And George and I actually were against NAFTA. I'm talking about him and his previous life before he was an objective journalist and didn't have opinions about such matters.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC: Plenty of opinions.

CLINTON: Yes. But -- you know, but we were in meetings together where we said, look, we think there is going to be a lot of downsides. And we're not really thinking through that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Now, did Hillary Clinton kind of undermine Stephanopoulos there by reminding viewers that they had worked together in the Clinton White House?

FOLKENFLIK: That's a little brutal. I mean, a completely fair point, to be honest, one that other campaigns have mentioned, you know, at various points. George Stephanopoulos has tried very hard since leaving the White House in early 1997 to show himself as a thoughtful, tough-minded political analyst. And in many occasions he's done. But for her to do this in this moment makes it very tough for him to proceed in the rest of this town hall-style meeting and show himself to be a completely distanced and detached observer.

KURTZ: In fairness, he asked and has asked in the past some tough questions of Senator Clinton.

FOLKENFLIK: Absolutely. But rhetorically though, positions of somebody who's inside the room, not somebody outside who is observing from a bit of a distance.

KURTZ: Right. Well, you know, it's on his resume. And by the same token, although it's been about two decades now, Tim Russert once worked for Democrats Mario Cuomo and Pat Moynihan.

<snip>

Link: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0805/04/rs.01.html

:shrug: