Hillary Clinton has received criticism for her remarks comparing George Bush to Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Newman in her speech to the first Aspen Ideas Festival. She accused Bush of avoiding tough issues with the character's famous attitude:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton went on the attack against President Bush in a speech Sunday, accusing him of damaging the economy by overspending while giving tax cuts to the rich. ...

"I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Newman is in charge in Washington," Clinton said referring to the freckle-faced Mad Magazine character. She drew a laugh from crowd when she described Bush's attitude toward tough issues with Newman's catchphrase: "What, me worry?"

Hillary appears to have a problem with reality. Unemployment has reached its lowest point in years, down to 5%, lower than the average unemployment rate during her husband's terms in office. The economy continues its strong growth, showing an annual growth rate in GDP for the last two quarters of 3.8%. In fact, the economy has continued to gain so much strength despite the effects of energy-price spikes that the Fed has increased its base lending rate for the ninth time to keep the economy from overheating.

That, however, isn't the only example of Hillary's delusional thinking in her Aspen speech. Later, she argued for additional spending on alternative energy sources, saying that this should be the last generation to depend so heavily on foreign sources for our needs. While that doesn't sound like bad advice, her underlying argumentation comes across as extraordinarily ignorant for a Senator seeking re-election, let alone a major White House contender:

"Ours will be the last generation to rely so exclusively on fossil fuels," she said, adding that the "ups and downs of the global oil market cost the U.S. economy $7 trillion last year ... almost enough to pay off our entire national debt."

Spikes in the oil market cost our economy seven trillion dollars in one year? Really? We need to see Hillary's evidence for this assertion, as our records show that the American GDP for all of 2004 amounted to $11.735 trillion (see table 3). Hillary needs to explain how she can calculate that two-thirds of our economy went into oil-price spikes. Energy only accounts for around $250 billion of our current GDP, and total imports account for only $1.5 trillion.

That assertion exposes Hillary as a demagogue and a liar, someone who throws around false statistics to deceive her audience. It may be effective for now, when all she has to do is motivate the overwhelmingly Democratic electorate of New York. But deceptions like this will come back to haunt her when she runs for the Presidency, as expected, in 2008. Spouting these ludicrous notions in 2005 might demonstrate Hillary's own problems with the "What, me worry?" attitude.

UPDATE: Some commenters at Oliver's blog now say that Hillary "meant" to say billion, not trillion. If these readers can explain how seven billion would cover our national debt -- which she asserted could be done with the price-spike damage -- then I might accept that analogy. I love the way they criticize name-calling while defending Hillary's comments, and call me Captain Cubicle at the same time. Cute. Not especially bright, but cute.

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» Hilllary -- the candidate for the reality based co from Bookworm Room
Kudos to the Captain for bringing facts and logic to Hillary's silly speech. I'm sorry to say, though, that this will not be enough. The reality-based community accepts unquestioningly any facts put forward by their leading "thinkers" and presenting ... [Read More]

Tracked on July 11, 2005 2:06 PM

» Hillary Clinton - Radical right-wing neo-con Bushite from The Unalienable Right
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» Help for Hillary Clinton from Mark in Mexico
Senator Clinton, this is Alfred E. Newman. Senator Clinton, this is George W. Bush Please note the dissimilarities. [Read More]

Tracked on July 11, 2005 2:48 PM

» Senator Hillary Clinton's from Macmind - Conservative Commentary and Common Sense
(observation from a friend that was there)... "It was really something to see! First Hillary, illuminated by a dark blue light, really got the moonbats in attendance howling with that line about Bush being like Alfred E. Neuman." But then su... [Read More]

Tracked on July 11, 2005 3:18 PM

» Hillary Who? from Epoch3 Blog
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» Miscellanea: Odds and Ends Edition from Decision '08
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» Context, Senator, context! from SCSU Scholars
Captain Ed has posted about Hillary Clinton's statements about the cost of oil fluctuations to the economy, and proceeds to engage in some debunking. He's right, and here's why. [Read More]

Tracked on July 12, 2005 12:04 AM