Hillary Clinton Fudges Facts on Iowa, Pakistan

Jake Tapper writes on Clinton working feverishly to lower expectations:

On Sunday, she told George Stephanopoulos on THIS WEEK, “When I started here, I was in single digits. I mean, nobody expected me to be doing as well as I’m doing in Iowa.”

I don’t think I know a single person who didn’t expect Clinton — an able politician, the most admired woman in America according to Gallup, and a partner in the strongest Democratic political machine since Mayor Daley’s — to do as well as she’s doing, which is to be in the thick of things.

But more factually, as for starting in single digits, her campaign cannot point to one poll in which she was in single digits.

…

Today, the charming Terry McAuliffe, her Campaign Chairman, told Fox News, “I think if you look from when we started this, when we got into Iowa, we were in single digits, 20, 25 points behind John Edwards who had been here for 6 years campaigning.”

Again, her campaign cannot point to one poll in which she was in single digits and 20-25 points behind Sen. John Edwards, D-NC.

As backup for that one, they point to an poll taken by Hardstad in October 2006 — long before she declared her candidacy — when Clinton was polling at 16%, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, was at 13%, and Edwards was at 36%.

This is Clinton dramatically lowering expectations in the week before the Caucus; Clinton is behind in polls and faces a major negative in terms of not getting many second place votes.

There’s also been a rising criticism of some of Clinton’s comments on Pakistan:

Ben Smith is the first (and so far as I can tell only) reporter to note that “Clinton errs on Pakistan.” Writing at Politico’s Democrats ‘08 blog, Smith reportst:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was praised in the wake of the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto for demonstrating her command of the players and the issues at stake in Pakistan, even as another candidate, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, was criticized for stumbling over details.

But in two confident television appearances, on CNN and ABC, Clinton made an elementary error about Pakistani politics: She described President Pervez Musharraf as a “candidate” who would be “on the ballot.”

In fact, Musharraf was reelected to the presidency in October. The upcoming elections are for parliament, and while Musharraf’s party will be facing off against opposition parties, the president himself is not a candidate.

“He will NOT be on the ballot,” said a Pakistan scholar at Columbia University, Philip Oldenburg, in an e-mail. “These are parliamentary elections, where the contests are for a seat in the national assembly. The prime ministerial candidate typically fights for victory in a local constituency, as well as lead[ing] the party in a national campaign.”

A spokesman for Clinton, Howard Wolfson, said Clinton was referring to Musharraf’s party, not the president himself.

And Oldenburg said that “how well the PML-Q, the so-called ‘King’s Party,’ does would in effect be a referendum on Musharraf.”

But Clinton’s words appear unambiguously to describe Musharraf himself as a candidate. In an email message alerting us to his report, Smith writes that he “can’t believe we all missed this at the time.” It remains to be seen whether anyone but Smith will take note.

Joe Biden certainly took note:

“We have a number of candidates who are well-intentioned but don’t understand Pakistan. One of the leading candidates — God love her,” said Biden, provoking laughter from the audience. “No,” he added, there are “good people running. But to say Musharraf is up for election! Musharraf was elected — fairly or unfairly — president six months ago. It’s about a parliamentary election.”

There’s sort of a widespread ignorance among the right of things said of liberal/progressive blogs, and the same on the left on things said on conservative blogs. However, Powerline and Hot Air seem to be on something here. Now that Biden has commented, perhaps this will get more attention.

The lesson should be to pay attention to what is said, not who is saying it whenever possible.