“Attack (Palin) for what, for being a woman? Attack her for being on a ticket that’s trying to draw attention?”
That’s what Hillary Clinton claims was her response to a 2008 request by then-Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama to attack Sarah Palin. In the midst of recent scrutiny of her decision-making during the Benghazi Consulate attack, in which she referred to a Congressional probe of the incident as “Minor League Ball,” Hillary is claiming that she took the high road when Barack Obama wanted her to go the attack against Palin, who had just been named John McCain’s running mate.
According to an AP report, Hillary said:
“The Obama campaign did contact me and asked me if I would attack her (Sarah Palin).”
Hillary was speaking to NBC to promote her new book, Hard Choices , in which she is quoted saying:
“They (the Obama campaign team) immediately issued a dismissive statement (about Palin) and reached out to me in hopes I would follow suit. But I wouldn’t. I was not going to attack Palin just for being a woman appealing for support from other women. I didn’t think that made political sense and it didn’t feel right. So I said no, telling them there’d be plenty of time for criticism. A few hours later the Obama campaign reversed itself and congratulated Governor Palin.”
For her part, Sarah Palin tweeted a portion of Hillary Clinton’s book, suggesting that perhaps the Democrats are the ones who launched the first attack in the so-called war on women:
Look who fired the 1st shot in the real “war on women”. Hint: it wasn’t the GOP. See this excerpt from Hillary’s book pic.twitter.com/kKBShf9vHj
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) June 9, 2014
ABC News reports that even though Hillary claims she denied the Obama campaign’s request to attack Palin, the former Alaska governor was still not her favorite Republican in Congress. That honor goes to Palin’s running mate. Says Clinton in response to the question of who her favorite Republican in Congress is:
“Despite my problems with him, John McCain, because he and I have traveled a lot and we argue a lot and he goes off on some things that I disagree with, but I admire him and I’ve spent a lot of time with him.”
What do you think? Did Hillary take the high road or is she just trying to deflect criticism of her claim to understand what it’s like to be broke? Should Clinton have refused or should she have gone along with then-Senator Barack Obama’s request to attack Palin?