Talk:Hillary Clinton/Archive 2

message: Luketh, the Political Views section you introduced is one of the primary reasons I said you were an HRC flak.
Most of the HRC quotes you give are stuff anyone could agree with.  For example, look at this piece of pap:
Independent government and free markets
On April 9, 2005, Senator Clinton addressed the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s Hubert Humphrey Dinner in Minneapolis. During her speech, Senator Clinton outlined her support for free markets and a government that balances power between its various independent branches. "One of the great geniuses of our founders was also how keenly they understood human nature. They knew if one person, one group acquired too much power it would be dangerous for democracy. You have to keep competing power centers to keep an eye on each other. When you have independent branches of government, a free market economy and a free press then you do have protection against abuse of power [27]."
Everybody thinks checks and balances are a good thing.  99% think free markets are a good thing.
Or this:
Support for working families
During her speech to the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s Hubert Humphrey Dinner in Minneapolis on April 9, 2005, Senator Clinton pledged her support for working families. "We have our work cut out for us and so we fight on. We fight for the parents who get up everyday meeting their responsibilities to their children and to their own parents who are getting older and sometimes need care too. We fight for the mother who worries what she’ll do if her child runs a fever some night and she knows she can’t afford to call a doctor.  fight for the dad who works two jobs to earn the income he used to bring home with one. Who never gets to sit down for a family meal anymore, who misses all those softball games, those little league and soccer games. And we fight for the high school senior who has worked so hard and now sees the cost of college slipping out of sight [28]."
This is political pablum.  What does "we fight for ..." really mean?  What specific policies is she for or against based on this?  When was the last time any politician said they were for not supporting working families?  This is boilerplate stuff, unworthy of inclusion here.
Or this:
Universal health care
In a speech to the Harvard Medical School on June 4, 1998, Clinton outlined her support for universal health care. "There are 41 million people without health insurance. Who will take care of these people in the future? How will we pay for their care? How will we pay for the extra costs that come when someone is not treated for a chronic disease or turned away from the emergency room? The job of health care reform cannot be done when access to care depends on skin color or the neighborhood they live in or the amount of money in their wallet. Let’s continue to work toward universal affordable, quality health care [29]."
This outlines the problem but says nothing about what solutions would actually look like, or what they would cost, or the likelihood that the "solutions" might end up making everything worse.  
Fiscal responsibility - I won't bother quoting it because it's totally obsolete, being based on the Internet bubble pre-W. tax cuts era of budget surpluses.
The Legal abortion and Civil unions quotes are ok, since they actually take stands on contentious issues.
Still there's no need to run these long quotes; you can just say "Clinton opposes gay marriage but supports civil unions." and ref link it to that speech.  Then add that she's against the FMA but for DOMA (Bill signed it, I think she agrees with DOMA too).
The National security/terrorism/UN ones are sort of ok, but they don't tackle Afghanistan or Iraq.  Hillary is notable for being an Afghanistan hawk - I included that when I started the Senate Career section a while back - and has charged the Bush admin with potentially botching the job by not funding enough reconstruction efforts there.  Her position on Iraq really needs some examination, which I parenthetically hinted at in the Senate section.  She gave a high-profile speech at the Council on Foreign Relations a year or more ago that is a better reference than some you are using.  
Better still on all these issues is to discuss votes she has made in the Senate, where the difficult choices actually have to be made, rather than just verbatim quote boilerplate speeches.   Wasted Time R 04:04, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There had been comments that a "Quotes" section was needed on this page. It seems appropriate as anyone who tries to outline Clinton's views themselves will be accused of POV. There are some people, and you may be in this camp considering your comment about Senate votes, who think that everything Clinton says is a lie. Anyone who paraphrases Clinton's perspective from her speeches would be accused of POV by those from this camp. Others think that everything her opponents say is a lie. Some people, including myself, are very critical of those who try to twist the votes of senators. I remember one commentator claiming that Al Gore Sr. voted against the Civil Rights Act. Technically, that's a true claim, but the commentator failed to mention that Gore Sr. voted for the Voting Rights Act the following year and apologized for his prior vote, blaming it on his upset over a failed amendment. Furthermore, this disgraceful commentator was trying to use Gore Sr.'s vote to damage Gore Jr. Such a vicious and misleading attack should have no place in political discourse. Note that Clinton's votes in a Republican-controlled Congress will be on legislation with which she disagrees in substantive detail even though she would obviously support alternative legislation on the same topics. For example, if Clinton voted against the "No Child Left Behind Act", would that make her anti-education? She's clearly pro-education but her vision of how to improve education is different from the vision of Republicans in Congress. That having been said, a reader who reads a "Political Views" section should expect to encounter Clinton's views as she describes them, not as others describe them. We would expect the same of a George W. Bush "Political Views" section or a Tony Blair "Political Views" section. If there's a controversy over something she says, perhaps because some people think her votes aren't consistent with her speeches, then we can open a new section in the "Controversies" section. Having a "Political Views" section provides balance to the "Controversies" section which is overwhelmingly anti-Clinton. As for your argument about specific details in political views, that argument isn't supported when a politician's party is in the minority. It would be foolish for Clinton to offer specific policy ideas that have no chance of passing the current Congress. When a reader is looking for her views, that reader wants to discover what Clinton would support if she were all-powerful. What issues does she talk about most? Is she talking about making dividends tax-free, creating a missle-defense system, supporting education, supporting working families, supporting small business, supporting big business, etc...? In this regard, the current "Political Views" section does a great job of outlining those topics that appear most frequently in Clinton's speeches. Possibly a good idea, based on your suggestion, to cast even more insight into Clinton's views, would be to create a "Legislative Votes" section where we outline Clinton's votes on all major legislation. The "Political Views" section, however, should also stay. Clinton's quotes on "Civil Unions" and "Abortion" seem no more relevant than her quotes on "Free Markets" and "Universal Health Care." There are plenty of politicians who aren't for "Universal Health Care." In fact, Clinton is perhaps best known for her failure to pass universal health care, which those on the right labeled "socialist." The quotes that you call "pap," possibly because they're flattering to her, are hugely substantive. The noncontroversial positions that politicians take on issues are just as important, if not more important, than the controversial positions they take. Most people don't want a politician who is so far out of the mainstream as to take a huge number of controversial positions. For example, some politicians have been very critical of the free press. Not Senator Clinton. Socialists and those on the far left are critical of free markets. Clinton's unequivocal support of free markets sets her apart from socialism. Still others want to centralize power in one branch of government. In one sentence, Senator Clinton lays out her position on three extremely important issues. The way she speaks about the working class lets the reader know those people with whom she identifies. Senator Kerry, for example, preferred to talk to the "middle class." It's well-known that Clinton has been a strong supporter of the working class, free press, balance of power, fiscal responsibility, education, and universal health care. In almost every speech, she focuses on one or more of these issues. There is simply no way we can write an encyclopedia article that would be fair to Clinton without giving her a voice on the political issues of her choice. Remember that every politician has the right to define his or her OWN political views. If we have such a long section on "Controversies," for an NPOV article, we need an equally long and detailed section on "Political Views." luketh 05:27, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

text: We're not going to be able to agree on this.   In my view even your examples argue against you; the article on Albert Gore, Sr. does mention those two votes in a quite reasonable way, whereas you would omit mention of them for fear they would be misinterpreted, and replace them with something he once said about how wonderful it is that America is the land of opportunity.  If HRC votes against something, that fact along with her stated reason for voting against it can be included.  Will you omit HRC's vote for or against Bush's upcoming Supreme Court nominee?  That's sure to be "controversial"!  It might be the subject of a negative campaign ad in the future!  It might confuse people about "her illustrious career"!  Better to replace it with a bland generic quote from her about how great America's system of justice is.   Wasted Time R 12:09, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

text: The link is fixed. In terms of relevance, read my long post above, in which I describe the reason for this quote, in that it sets her apart from Senator John Kerry, who identified with the middle class. luketh 22:10, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Quotes and Economic Policy

message: The reading list is overwhelmingly negative. To restore some NPOV I've removed Andersen's book, Bill and Hillary: The Marriage, from the list. Andersen called President Clinton a rapist point-blank and had so many other crazy claims that even the most extreme conservatives have shied away from his book. Note that those interested in the worst possible gossip about President and Senator Clinton can find that material, in current form, in Klein's book. The combination of Klein's book, Olson's books, Morris's book, Blumenthal's book, and Brock's book should satisfy even the most dedicated Clinton-hater. Recommending Andersen's book as well pushes NPOV to its breaking point. luketh 08:58, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The reading list should now meet the standards of NPOV. We have 5 pro-Clinton and 5 anti-Clinton books. Anyone who adds a pro-Clinton book has the responsibility to add an anti-Clinton book and vice versa.  luketh 17:47, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: OK with me.  My visit to the library this morning revealed that there are an unbelievable number of books on the Clintons, of all perspectives and levels of quality.  So any list in this article is going to have to be selective, and so it might as well be balanced pro, neutral, and anti.  I also tried getting rid of the Olsen Last Days book a while back, on the grounds that it wasn't Hillary-specific, but somebody kept putting it back in.   Wasted Time R 19:09, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Luke, you're spending too much time on this!  You're treating this like the syllabus for a college course.  It's not.  These aren't listed as References, they're listed as Further Reading, which doesn't imply an endorsement, just that they concern the subject.  Yes, given that a full list of Hillary books is impractical, it would be nice to have a rough agenda balance, but you don't need the fine-tuning you're trying to do here.  Wasted Time R 02:05, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Reading List

message: We need to keep this nonbiased. It needs to be an article with which both liberals and conservatives can agree. Stick to the facts. President Clinton admitted to sexual contact but not a sexual affair. "Affair" usually means having sex, not doing what President Clinton did, the details of which we all know. Hopefully we can write an article with which we both agree, a NPOV article. luketh 8 July 2005 18:05 (UTC)
:I've reworked the relationship section to include some of your wording, some of the prior wording, and some new wording.  Hopefully it will be reasonable to all of us.   Wasted Time R 8 July 2005 19:46 (UTC)
::Compromise almost accepted. Adultery has inappropriate connotations as the word is based in religion and the sin of adultery was once punishable by death. Also, "convenience" would need to be sourced.
:::I disagree - "adultery" is a common term in civil divorce as well.  But your "extra-marital affair" alternative is ok with me.  I added a link to marriage of convenience, good point.   Wasted Time R 8 July 2005 20:25 (UTC)
::::Marriage of convenience is often used for marriages when lesbians and gay men marry straight. Since you sourced it, however, proving that some people have in fact called their marriage a "marriage of convenience," it shouldn't be misleading. Have you ever watched Hannity and Colmes? It's good to have people with different perpectives sourcing and explaining their perspectives. It leads to an end result that's closer to an impartial truth. luketh 8 July 2005 20:53 (UTC)
This section is highly controversial, but yet quite important to understanding Clinton. Please comment changes to this section on this talk page so that they can be discussed and a compromise can be reached. luketh 21:27, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Added NPOV comments about their marriage and Bill Clinton's heart surgery. luketh 19:20, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Relationship with Bill Clinton

message: I don't like all the usages of "Mrs. Clinton" in this article, which have gone from 7 to 14 with Luketh's changes.  It just emphasizes that she's somebody else's wife rather than her own person.  General Wikipedia style is not to use "Mr." or "Mrs." or "Ms.".  A good example is the Margaret Thatcher article, which never uses "Mrs." at all (except when it occurs in the title of a book in the biblio).  Ditto Golda Meir and Elizabeth Dole.
I realize that in this case there are problems with disambiguating the two Clintons at times.  However I think this can be worked around by explicitly using "President Clinton", "Bill Clinton", and/or "Hillary Clinton" when necessary.   Wasted Time R 9 July 2005 11:38 (UTC)
Note that Mrs. is the title of a first lady. Senator is the title of a senator. There is no precedent for addressing a senator or a first lady by their first names. Note that in an article about Senator Frist, we wouldn't start a sentence by saying "Bill's detractors...." We need to be fair and consistent. It's important that in this article we give Senator Clinton fair treatment. This is not the place for "dirt" on Senator Clinton. This is an article to outline her legacy in U.S. life. Any "dirt" should go in a "Controversies" section, which this article contains, and, which, it should be noted, is too long and too speculative. luketh 9 July 2005 15:47 (UTC)
Strawman.  Encyclopedias use neither "Mrs." nor just first names.
Refer to First Lady of the United States for proof that, in the case of the first lady of the United States, "Mrs." is the appropriate title. Because of your comments, I've returned the number of uses of "Mrs." to 7. luketh 20:41, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of "Mrs." 

message: There've been a couple of reversions adding/removing the word liberal from a sentence in the introduction: "She is a liberal member of the Democratic Party." My own opinions of Hillary's liberalness aside, has she ever described herself as a liberal, or been described as a liberal by her own party? (Descriptions of her as a liberal from the GOP or other conservative bodies would probably not be as definitive, as many of her opponents would likely be using the word as a slur rather than as a descriptive term.) AиDя01DTALKEMAIL June 28, 2005 21:12 (UTC)
:Unequivocally labelling a politician as "liberal" is rarely an NPOV statement, especially as more and more of the left-wing of the Democratic Party eschews the term. It would certainly be appropriate for someone like Ted Kennedy, who has been the standard bearer for Democratic liberalism for several decades, but Hillary's relative ideological position is definitely debatable, and hence not something we should be making declarative statements about. RadicalSubversiv E 28 June 2005 21:39 (UTC)
*Fact? Probably not. "Liberal" means different things to different people, and perhaps rather than flatly using this word in the introduction to the article, Hillary's particular position on the spectrum can be discussed later in the article, as is done in, say, the Nancy Pelosi article, with quotes and votes on legislation to back it up. I note that the word "liberal" is used nowhere else in the article. If this is an oversight, it should be corrected with a few sentences to back it up, rather than just an adjective in the introduction. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL June 30, 2005 22:58 (UTC)
*"She is a liberal member of the Democratic Party." is an ambiguous statement.  Does it mean she is a member of the Democratic Party who is a liberal (compared to the median of the general population), or does it mean that within the Democratic Party she is a liberal (compared to median of the party)?  The latter might be difficult to maintain, since for example on foreign policy she is notably towards the hawkish end of the Democratic spectrum.  On Bush judges she is in the center (neither a member of the group-of-14 nor one of the Dems who voted against the Bush 3 even after the filibuster deal).  On big economic issues (tax cuts, Social Security) she is squarely in the Dem middle.  On small economic issues she tends to be for whatever benefits New York State.
*There are some sections of her quotes now so it should be OK to call her a liberal without being POV but let's keep it in her "Political Views" section. luketh 02:26, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: liberal means different things to different folks.  for example, i view her as a centrist.  it would be best to see if she applies a label to herself & then say for example "self-described liberal/moderate/whatever." Derex 20:53, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

text: in order to sweep new york state, the cold unihabitable part anyway, you have to be a sell out, a huge sell out, you basically have to campaign as a rebublican, whatever party you may actually be a part of, you'll never win the cold frigid regions of the state by being liberal, even by 1950s standards, if upstate was any WASPier it would sting you *drum roll* -- anon 02:32, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Liberal member vs. plain vanilla member 

message: Is there a current NPOV dispute?  If so, could someone please state the problem so we can resolve it?  Looking through old talk it seems as though the objection may now be moot. Or is this a new tag> Derex 01:41, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Luketh put that on I think.  I'm the only one objecting to the current state of the article.  Luketh's talk page is filled with people liking the recent changes, so I'm in the minority, so I'll take the tag off.  Wasted Time R 02:16, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV tag 

message: Further investigation has convinced me that the name change involved little to no controversy (I was wrong previously).  Therefore I don't think it needs to be mentioned in the Controversies section – why invent trouble where it doesn't exist?   Wasted Time R 03:46, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You were not the only person who thought that the coverage of this topic  was controversial. While you may have changed your views, others, including me, have not. Please continue to leave this item in the Controversies section or remove it altogether. It has little relevance to Clinton's accomplishments. luketh 19:35, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name change 

message: I went to the library this morning and looked through Living History, her memoirs.  The name change account is contained in pages 91-93 (hardcover edition).
She starts by saying "I learned the hard way that some voters in Arkansas were seriously offended by the fact that I kept my maiden name."  She says she kept it in part to keep hers and Bill's professional interests apart, and so that she could act as a lawyer without bringing apparent conflict of interest into situations.
She taught, tried cases, published, and spoke as Hillary Rodham.  This was becoming more common in other parts of the country, but was still rare in Arkansas.
But she also kept her name in the personal and family sphere as well.  Indeed she says that Virginia Kelly
(Bill's mother) cried when she heard that she was keeping her name.  And when they sent out Chelsea's birth
announcements, she used her name, which again raised eyebrows.  There is no suggestion in Living History that she was using Rodham only professionally.
In the winter after Bill's 1980 defeat for re-election, Vernon Jordan told her that she was going to have to change her name to use Clinton, as part of getting Bill back into office.  She agreed, and when Bill announced his 1982 campaign on Chelsea's second birthday, "I began calling myself Hillary Rodham Clinton".
The only other mention she makes is on page 111, during the 1992 presidential campgain.  Some staffer orders stationary for her inscribed as Hillary Clinton.  She doesn't like the implication that she needs to drop the Rodham, and she re-orders the stationary as Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Another book, Pulitzer Prize winner James B. Stewart's Blood Sport: The President and His Adversaries, pages 104-105, corraborates this account, but adds that during the 1982 campaign, "She was being introduced and sometimes referred to herself as Mrs. Bill Clinton" rather than Hillary Rodham.  He then quotes a friend at the time as remarking upon this shift, since "Hillary had always been so militant about keeping her name."
Another book, Roger Morris' Partners in Power, page 277 again corraborates the 1982 account, then page 282 places Bill's announcement speech on February 28, 1982 (one day after Chelsea's birthday), and quotes her as saying at the press conference, "I don't have to change my name; I've been Mrs. Bill Clinton since the day we were married" and that she would be "strictly Mrs. Bill Clinton for a while."  Morris then says that a month after this announcement, she changed voter registration to be Hillary Rodham Clinton.
I couldn't find any book that discussed her post-1992 election statement to the press that she wanted to be known as Hillary Rodham Clinton.  The next place to look is in the New York Times index, but I didn't have the chance to do that.   Wasted Time R 16:22, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: What HRC's memoirs and two other books say on the name change

message: This one keeps recurring.  Here's the deal:  it's not like high school, where you go freshman -> sophomore -> junior -> senior.  In the Senate, Freshman means you're serving your first term in office.  (Once you've been reelected to a second term, you're simply not a freshman anymore.  Nobody uses the term 'sophomore' in this sense.)  Junior means you've been in office for less time than the other senator from your state, while Senior means the reverse. 
Accordingly, Freshman and Junior-vs.-Senator are independent calculations.  A freshman senator can be either the junior or senior senator of a state (the latter if the other senator is also a freshman, who is even newer), while someone in office 35 years might be the junior senator (if the other senator has been in even longer).
These are standard terms, no different for HRC than anyone else.  They don't need further explication in this article.  The Infobox has a field Jr/Sr, which clearly can't be set to Freshman.
So bottom line, HRC is the junior Senator from New York (since the other senator, Schumer, has been there longer), serving her freshman term.  Wasted Time R 11:23, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Junior vs. Freshman 

message: Marcel1975:
that's all fine and dandy, but (inserting POV here, I will NOT be editing the MAIN HRC page) Lincoln would be dead set against abortions, gay marriage and most of what is currently considered to be the left wing agenda. Her claiming that Lincoln would now be a democrat is ludicrous. I could easily say that Truman and JF Kennedy would be republicans today, and would at least be half right.
:I agree that this kind of speculation is pointless.  HRC's statement is a throwaway and doesn't need to be in an encyclopedia.  I've removed it.   Wasted Time R 19:25, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: What would Lincoln be

message: The article will be needing a NPOV tag soon if this is not rectified, IMO. It seems like every single little thing that Hillary has been involved in has generated a "controversy," resulting in a massively inflated section full of trivial, insignificant things, seemingly to make it seem like the Senator is perpetually embroiled in scandals. If we had a section like this for every other Senator with such a loose definition of "controversy," some Congressmen would require extra Wiki articles to get everything included. Even the formaton of an anti-Hillary PAC was included as a separate controversy here until I removed it recently, I mean come on now. Anyone with me? 66.36.132.198 17:22, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've deleted one (video games) that was minor and uncited.  I moved another one (move to the center) into the 2008 prez section, since it was clearly just politics and not some kind of scandal or gaffe.  I agree that some of what's still there could easily be merged back into the main sections or even eliminated, but LukeTH felt strongly otherwise and was willing to mega-edit to back it up.  But he seems to have gone quiet, so I dunno ...     Wasted Time R 18:34, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea. I just merged the entry on her book to the "Books and writings" section. I'll keep an eye out to see if anything else can be better incorporated. 66.36.133.229 19:54, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've moved the role of the First Lady "controversy" into the regular First Lady section where it adds to the continuity, and I've moved the changing sports affiliations "controversy" into the Culture clashes section (it's so minor, it could also be removed outright).  I believe the 6 items now remaining in the Controversies section all belong there, meaning they are either allegations of misdeeds on her part, or real misdeeds of people close to her, or serious gaffes.  (Well, the Gandhi comment is kind of marginal, but I'm inclined to leave it in.)   Wasted Time R 02:21, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent edits. The section looks much better now. Thanks. 66.36.133.229 18:01, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Isn't it better to have the controversies labelled as such rather than included, as it were, on the sly? If someone wants to remove a controversy, presumably because it's no longer controversial, then they are free to remove it, but placing controversies as stumbling blocks in the main portion of the text is not a good solution. luketh 16:05, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Look at that, my mere mention of Luketh summoned him up :-)  I continue to think that Luke's many-controversy scheme is misguided, but I'll leave it to 66.36.133.229 and others to argue it out.   Wasted Time R 17:16, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Controversies" section is getting ridiculous  

message: I sent out a few emails to track down Laura Bush's legal name.  The White House did not respond.  Below is the email I received from The National First Ladies' Library.  I include it here because their email also discussed Hillary's name.  I would note that the name usage differs between this article and the Laura Bush article.  
NoSeptember,
I consulted our expert and First Lady biographer, Carl Anthony.  This is his response:
Well, she was born with the first name Laura and the middle name Lane, and her last name was Welch. She married Bush. She signs her name Laura Bush, but her full name is Laura Lane Welch Bush, You don't have to declare what "official" name you are taking when you marry. I mean Hillary was born with the middle name Diane. Her maiden name was Rodham. She married Clinton. At first she just went by the professional name Hillary Rodham. Then she used the name Hillary Clinton. Then, in her first weeks as First Lady she began calling herself Hillary Rodham Clinton which she still uses, but she is listed with her full name Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton. Jackie Kennedy never signed her name, "Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis," she went by Jackie Onassis and then by Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
All of these women assumed, took on the last name of their husband; some signed their names with their maiden names, some didn't, and some went back and forth. So the names were "legally adopted" in that sense, but at different times they used their middle and/or maiden names.
It seems there isn’t any “official, legal” name but rather the name most commonly used by the person at the time.   Really our SS numbers rather than our names legally identify us.   Hope this helps.
Martha A. Regula, Library Director 
National First Ladies' Library, Education and Research Center 
205 Market Ave. S. 
Canton, Ohio 44702 
330-452-0876 
regulam@firstladieslibrary.org 
Should we make the name usage consistent between the Hillary Clinton and the Laura Bush articles? NoSeptember 23:48, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The Name Game

message: has removed the following text, and requests a cite:
::Just as Bill Clinton said that he "never had sex with that woman," so Hillary wrote in her newspaper column in January 1996 that she had been cleared of any involvement in the massive frauds that led to the collapse of the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan Association in Arkansas. To add emphasis, she said that a "prominent Republican, former U.S. Attorney Jay Stephens, headed the inquiry" by the Pillsbury law firm that supposedly exonerated her.
::Several months of Senate committee investigations, however, revealed an entirely different story. Jay Stephens not only did not head the inquiry, he had nothing to do with writing the report and refused even to review it, since he knew that doing so would make it look as if he were involved with it or approved it. "I refused to do that," he said, "because I was not involved."
::Mr. Stephens was not involved because the White House went ballistic at the outset, when it was first suggested that he might be involved. The billing records of the law firm confirm that Stephens was quickly phased out of this investigation that Hillary Clinton claimed he "headed."
::Two other members of the same law firm wrote reports and one of them said: "I don't think our reports exonerated anybody of anything." Their whole purpose was to determine whether it made economic sense to launch a civil lawsuit against Madison Guaranty, not to determine which individuals might be guilty or innocent.
::In the same column, Hillary Clinton said that she did "minimal legal work on Madison." Yet records showed that she had dozens of meetings with the people for whom she did this "minimal" legal work.
::More records might have revealed even more information, but Hillary had many of those records destroyed at the Rose Law Firm, where she was a partner. Other records were stolen from the same firm by Webster Hubbell and turned over to White House lawyer Vincent Foster. This is the same Vincent Foster who committed suicide on the day when the FBI began seizing documents in Arkansas.
::This is the same Vincent Foster whose office was ransacked for hours after his death, despite requests from law enforcement officials that nothing be touched until they got there. This is the same Vincent Foster whose fingerprints were found -- along with Hillary's -- on billing records that got "lost" in the White House for two years after they were subpoenaed.
--Viriditas  | Talk 21:18, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Cite request

message: Why do we have such an extensive further reading section and not a single reference? If any of these books for further reading were used as sources for this article, can we please move them to the appropriate section? Thanks. Johnleemk | Talk 16:08, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I'm the only contributor who's used book references, and I've just now added in explicit page cites where I did.  Everybody else uses online cites.  Also, most of the "Further reading" books are highly POV from one aspect or another, so I think the existing section title is more appropriate than "References".    Wasted Time R 00:19, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be better if we follow convention (see WP:CITE) and have a real references section. Those extensive weblinks would also be better off in the references section, though I fear this would swell the length of an already very crowded article. Johnleemk | Talk 11:29, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, those things would be better, but I'm not prepared to put a scholarly-paper-level-of-effort into a WP article, when I don't have control over the ongoing outcome.  As it stands with the inline weblinks, this is still probably one of the better referenced political articles in WP. Wasted Time R 15:12, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Spurred by this discussion and following the example of George W. Bush#Further reading and information, I've separated the Further reading section into By Clintons, Pro-Clinton, Anti-Clinton, and Mostly Neutral groupings, using the POV assessments made by LukeTH in the #Reading List discussion above. I've also restored the books that LukeTH excluded, since given this explicit breakout, I don't think numeric balancing is necessary. There will always be more "anti" books than "pro" books for a controversial figure like this, since "antis" are more riled up and thus more likely to buy; GWB has many more antis than pros in his list.   Wasted Time R 13:00, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: References

message: This article is 65 KB, and is larger than reccommended. See Wikipedia:Article size for information on how to make it shorter. Thank you, Mysekurity  e-mail 03:11, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Size 

message: Is the presence of only pro-Hillary POV sites in external links a coincidence or an editing consensus that links to anti-Hillary POV sites will not appear in the article?  What are the criteria you are using?
patsw 15:18, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's just a coincidence. Most of those sites (which are billed as external links, not external references) were added some time ago, I don't think anyone's looked at them lately, some may be obsolete by now. The further reading section of the article lists 7 or 8 books that all portray Hillary as the spawn of Satan, so there's certainly no attempt to suppress pointers to anti-Hillaryites.    Wasted Time R 15:47, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've corrected the heading.  Thanks.  patsw 16:43, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Links are only pro-Hillary 

message: A detailed listing of a senator's voting record on a single topic, in this case immigration, is not appropriate for an encyclopedia article. We're here to summarize information, not provide all the details. We already have a big sectoin on her political views, with subsections on numerous topics. That should be sufficient. -Willmcw 22:27, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  And that long voting record on immigration piece of text had the smell of something copied off some other organisation's website.   Wasted Time R 02:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voting record