Talk:Hillary Clinton/Archive 2

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Quotes and Economic Policy

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)

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)

Note, also, that the quotes in the "Political Views" section are Senator Clinton's less controversial quotes. Many other quotes are more detailed but possibly too controversial for an NPOV encyclopedia article. The quotes included on this page seem to capture her views without introducing bias. You're welcome to add more or to replace these quotes with quotes you consider more relevant. All quotes should be quotes that are in line with the commonly accepted understanding of Clinton's views that are consistent with the numerous speeches she has delivered throughout her illustrious career. I've seen enough cases of quoting out-of-context to know that a few words from a person's speech can be used to undermine a position they've developed throughout their entire political career. In an encyclopedia article, all quotes should be representative of long-standing political views. luketh 05:39, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

The purpose of this encyclopedia article, as any encyclopedia article, is not to "dig dirt" on Senator Clinton but to provide the user with a sense of her place in American political life and a sense of her long-standing political views. While there may be a place for outlining specific positions on current legislation, and there will be, if you choose to develop such a section, most readers looking for such information will find it in the news. Encyclopedia articles should be more biographical, focusing on long-term trends, rather than specific votes. luketh 05:57, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

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)

(cur) (last) 21:13, 16 July 2005 Wasted Time R (→Support for working families - rm section - link doesn't work anymore - not substantive anyway)

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)

Unfortunately, the links for the Working Families and Independent government and free markets sections no longer work. The quotes remain valid. However, in the spirit of good editorialism, it may be a good idea for someone to completely rewrite the Economic Policies section with relevant and well-cited quotes. Do not, however, simply remove the existing sections without adding a new section as this will create a vacuum in the Political Views section. luketh 22:34, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Reading List

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)

(cur) (last) 14:03, 17 July 2005 Wasted Time R (→Further reading - restore book prev pulled; all should be listed, even if vile)

Good editors shouldn't list material that has been completely discredited and that isn't endorsed by anyone. If you can find anyone who wants to make a credible case that Andersen's book is truthful, we can restore it to the list. Otherwise, once a book is discredited and abandoned, the author being labeled dishonest and libelous, we should treat the book as if it were never written. luketh 02:52, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

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)

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)

I've added the neutral biography Hillary Rodham Clinton : A First Lady for Our Time, written by Donnie Radcliffe, a biographer who also wrote Simply Barbara Bush: A Portrait of America's Candid First Lady. This book was recommended by the AOL Clinton biography. luketh 00:01, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Added two more biographies Hillary: Her True Story by Norman King and Hillary Clinton: The Inside Story by Judith Warner. Both were recommended by the AOL Clinton biography. luketh 00:16, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to outline my thoughts on the reading list. Hopefully as I type, I'll develop some idea of how we can construct a good reading list for this entry. What I plan to do is to give a short description of each of the books in our current reading list and make arguments for which should and shouldn't stay. Each editor of this page can come to his or her own conclusion, but please be sure that everyone who alters the reading list maintains a fair balance of perspectives.

The two books written by Clinton herself, It Takes a Village and Living History unquestionably belong on our reading list. Bill Clinton's autobiography, My Life, should be included since Clinton figures prominently.

The three neutral biographies by King, Radcliffe, and Warner should cause no controversy by remaining on the reading list.

The remaining books are as follows:

Blumenthal, Sidney. The Clinton Wars.

This is a radically pro-Clinton book, primarily about Bill Clinton, that outlines "the Italianate conspiracy" arrayed against Clinton, "an intricate, covert, amoral operation bent on power, funded by Richard Mellon Scaife and fronted by a ruthlessly vindictive Starr." Its relevance to our reading list is questionable. For more, read its Amazon page.

Brock, David. The Seduction of Hillary Rodham.

A radically anti-Clinton book, primarily anti-Bill-Clinton, that tries to make a case that "Hillary Rodham Clinton is a brilliant, principled, but betrayed woman whose social activism is rooted in liberal Methodism and deep compassion for the underprivileged, especially children; but it has been distorted and derailed by her Faustian alliance with her husband, "the greatest seducer who ever lived."" The author is described as someone "best known as the right-wing hatchet man who produced "The Real Anita Hill."" This book could not pass any NPOV standards and should be included on our reading list only as an anti-Clinton book to balance other pro-Clinton books. For more, read its Amazon page.

Conason, Joe and Lyons, Gene. The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton.

A radically pro-Clinton book arguing that "the better the president and the country did, the more his adversaries appeared willing to endorse almost anything short of assassination to do him in" and that "the tactics of the Clinton enemies were worse than any mistake made by the president." Its place on our reading list is questionable and should be used only to balance anti-Clinton books. For more, read its Amazon page.

Estrich, Susan. The Case for Hillary Clinton.

This was a book that I added, in an attempt to find a balancing pro-Clinton book, but it seems that it's written by someone who doesn't make good pro-Clinton arguments and merely reinforces the arguments made in The Case Against Hillary Clinton by Peggy Noonan. As it's more anti-Clinton than pro-Clinton, and its title is misleading, its relevance to our reading list is questionable.

Klein, Edward, The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President.

This is a particularly important book to include on our reading list. While it's radically anti-Clinton, as everyone by now knows, it's in the news frequently, and, as such, is highly relevant to current political discourse. It claims that "Hillary had in fact known about the president's chronic womanizing-and Monica specifically-for some time. Her "wronged wife" act was just that: spin to garner sympathy for her own political ends." In an interview with Hannity and Colmes on FoxNews, Hannity asked Klein if his claim that "Bill raped Hillary" was true and Klein, while not denying it, backed off slightly. While I haven't read this book, its intention is to destroy Clinton's reputation. If included on our reading list, it would need a counter-balancing pro-Clinton book. For more, see its Amazon page.

Morris, Dick. Rewriting History.

Another fiercely anti-Clinton book that, like Klein's book, everyone is talking about. Morris "aims to unveil what he says is the real Hillary Rodham Clinton—the calculating tactician, zealous ideologue, dubious dealmaker—before she becomes president, recasting Clinton as a political chameleon—to Morris, metaphorically characterized by her changing hairstyles—whose nefarious duplicity is rivaled only by Richard Nixons." Because of its current place in discussions about Clinton, it should most definitely be on our reading list. It would need a counterbalancing pro-Clinton book. For more, see its Amazon page.

Olson, Barbara, "Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton"

The title says it all. And if that's not enough, read the [1] Amazon page]. Olsen is "a conservative lawyer who served as the Republican chief counsel for the congressional committee investigating the Clintons' involvement in "Travelgate" and "Filegate"" and "contends that Mrs. Clinton is someone with dangerously liberal, even radical, political beliefs who "now seeks to foment revolutionary changes from the uniform of a pink suit." Including this book on our reading list would require a very powerful pro-Clinton counterweight indeed.

And that's it! Looking at the above list of POV sources, which excludes the biographies, Clinton's own books, and Bill Clinton's autobiography, which are independently relevant, we have Blumenthal and Conason which are radically pro-Clinton, Brock, Klein, Morris, and Olsen which are radically anti-Clinton, and Estrich, which is somewhere deceptively in the middle and should be immediately removed from our list. One option would be to add two more radically pro-Clinton POV sources to balance the list. Another option, which I prefer, would be to remove two of the radically anti-Clinton POV sources. As noted in my descriptions above, Klein and Morris seem to me to be the most relevant radically anti-Clinton POV sources at this current time. Including Blumenthal and Conason would balance them with radically pro-Clinton POV sources. We only have 3 neutral NPOV biographies so it may be best simply to remove Estrich, Brock, and Olson altogether, leaving us with 3 NPOV biographies, 4 POV biographies, and 3 books by the Clintons. Is this an acceptable reading list? Feel free to disagree, but remember to keep the reading list neutral, which means that if any POV sources are included, counter-balancing POV sources of equal vehemence from the opposite perspective also need to be included. luketh 01:20, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

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) BTW, you have to say Olsen was ..., as she was killed on the 9/11 plane that hit the Pentagon.

Relationship with Bill Clinton

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)

Added NPOV comments about their marriage and Bill Clinton's heart surgery. luketh 19:20, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Structure

This article needs a complete overhaul. Anyone? Hopefully, we can make this article a noteworthy biography with coverage of Senator Clinton's history and political evolution throughout the past decades. While it's important to mention criminal allegations and scandals, these need to be documented, and they need to play a relatively minor role. Refer to any biography published by a reputable source. If Wikipedia is to maintain its position in the world, it needs to be a source of comprehensive and unbiased knowledge. I'd appreciate any help with this. luketh 8 July 2005 17:23 (UTC)

You're not going to get much help if you insist on soft-pedaling the Lewinsky scandal. If Bill had just admitted a sexual relationship with her up front, the world would have moved on. Instead he tried a game of twisted semantics under oath and got impeached. Don't make the same mistake! (And if JonGwynne weren't banned he'd be ripping your edits to pieces by now.) Wasted Time R 8 July 2005 17:47 (UTC)

umm, the lewinsky scandal has just about nothing to do with hillary, besides that she got cheated on but worked to save her marriage. Derex 20:40, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Luketh, you're putting wikilinks on terms inside Hillary's quotations. I don't think you're supposed to do that. With quotations, just leave the words unadorned as they are. Wasted Time R 8 July 2005 21:27 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I didn't know that rule. Problem corrected. luketh 8 July 2005 22:31 (UTC)

During the past day, I've worked hard to fix the structure of this article. Please add sections and paragraphs, but don't delete, unless they're unsourced or otherwise provably false. There's plenty to write about Senator Clinton as she's one of the most important, and most talked about, politicians of this decade, and, if she runs for president in 2008, this page will become even more popular. Let's provide an accurate, unbiased, and well-sourced picture of her life, her views, and political controversies as befits an encyclopedia. luketh 9 July 2005 06:42 (UTC)

I folded the 2006 Senate race speculation into the 2008 Presidential race speculation, since they are somewhat linked. I don't think either belongs in here - encyclopedias should discuss what has happened, not what might happen - but others disagree. I did yank out that quote from her press secretary, which was a piece of useless pap. Wasted Time R 9 July 2005 11:24 (UTC)

Luketh, please try to use "Show preview" more and "Save page" less. You've made so many separate edits in your changes that it's very hard to follow what your changes have been and to diff them against what used to be there. Wasted Time R 9 July 2005 11:24 (UTC)

Criticism taken. Senator Clinton's 2006 Senate race run has nothing whatsoever to do with a possible presidential bid. These are two separate races and they deserve separate treatment. Note that we have a section on Clinton's 2000 Senate race run. I have restored this section because there is no way anyone can argue it belongs to a presidential bid section. luketh 9 July 2005 15:42 (UTC)

Wasted Time: I've noticed that some of your changes are weakening Senator Clinton's article by inserting controversy into the non-controversial historical sections. If it's possible that you dislike Senator Clinton, you should find a politician with whom you agree, and work on their article. As requested by numerous users, I'm doing my job to rewrite and restructure the article. If you want to add controversy, it has its place in the article, but it needs to be restricted to the Controversies section. Trivia should be placed in the Trivia section because it's distracting when given a central role. These are standards consistent with any professional encyclopedia entry. This is not a political piece. There's plenty of political commentary on both the conservative and the liberal sides about Senator Clinton to satisfy anyone's appetite. luketh 9 July 2005 16:16 (UTC)

Actually for the most part I like HRC, and I'll vote for her if she runs for Prez. But I recognize that she's a deeply polarizing figure in American public and political life, and I believe the article on her should convey that. Her name change to Hillary Rodham Clinton immediately after reaching the White House (and not during the campaign) irritated many people, who thought her pattern of name changing was deceitful. Hence I believe the name changing is central to her story, not an item of trivia. Similarly the argument against It Takes a Village was a real debate on public policy, not some "controversy" aimed against her. So I think you were wrong to move that too.

I respect your views and I agree that Senator Clinton is deeply polarizing. That's why we have such a large "Controversies" section, much larger than the "Controversies" sections of any other senator's page that I could find. If you'd like to move Senator Clinton's name-changing to the "Controversies" section and add more detail, that's fine with me. I'm sorry if I trivialized it. It's important, however, in an encyclopedia article, that those people who come to the page to read facts aren't forced to read about controversy. Those who choose to read about controversy should have that choice and we should cover the controversies comprehensively. It's not good when someone who wants to read about what Mrs. Clinton did as first lady is required to think about the controversy surrounding her name changing in three separate places. If they're interested in that particular controversy, they have the option to read about it in the "Controversies" section under a clear title that can be found through the Table of Contents. In fact, I'll move it the "Controversies" section myself, and I apologize for placing it in the "Trivia" section. All controversies are also covered extensively in politically-motivated literature that is readily available elsewhere and we can add even more links to the page. If you'd like to add a section on "Public Policy Debates" for the It Takes A Village disagreement, that would also probably be a good idea.

In most general terms I'm not interesting in contributing to the hagiography that you are assembling. I debated against JonGwynne when he was dominating the article because he was too anti-HRC, and I'm arguing against you now that you're dominating the article because you are too pro-HRC. I'm clearly losing in both cases; so be it. Wasted Time R 20:43, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Note that this is not a "hagiography." This is a biography of Senator Clinton. While controversial, Senator Clinton is one of the most widely recognized and respected political figures in the United States. When I arrived at this site, it was wholly a collection of controversies without any description of Senator Clinton's role in public life. Many users were complaining about this, and, when I began restructuring the article, a well-known administrator sent me a message of appreciation. You mentioned that JonGwynne is banned and I can only guess that it had something to do with his lack of professional conduct. Your additions to the site have been valuable, and, as you can see, they all have their places on the site. It's important, however, that controversy is restricted to sections whose headers alert the reader, so that the reader can decide whether or not to read about the political controversies or policy disagreements. Most readers are coming to an encyclopedia article for facts that answer the questions in my following post. We should cover the controversy, but also recognize, that most people who are interested in the controversies prefer to read about the controversies from sources who share their political persuasions. Perhaps a separate page for the controversies surrounding Senator Clinton would be in order, for example Controversies surrounding Hillary Rodham Clinton. You can link it to her biographical page. luketh 21:13, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, I don't like your approach of isolating all the "controversies" (many of which aren't, they are just things that happened) into their own section. One, it breaks the timeline, and two, it tends to ghetto-ize them. And if you then push them all off into a separate article, you will have almost totally neutralized them. Which may be your aim.

I also find it impossible to work on this article, given your editing style of doing a "Save page" every other minute. You are literally making 150 separate edits at a stretch, making any use of the History mechanism nearly impossible. I already mentioned this once, but you continue to do it. Indeed you may be doing this deliberately – it's a Wikipedia trick of the trade to discourage other editors from trying to figure out what's being done to an article.

Finally, I salute you for your perseverance, and if HRC is looking for a new publicist for her 2006 or 2008 campaigns, I'll give you a full recommendation. Wasted Time R 23:10, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

This is an NPOV encyclopedia article. We must assume that the reader knows what s/he wants to read and has the intelligence to naviagate our table of contents. Maintaining a NEUTRAL point of view (NPOV), in those sections that should be strictly biographical, is a worthy goal. Refer to George W. Bush and Bill Clinton for examples of nicely structured articles. Both articles have additional separate pages for various controversial topics. Our article should conform to similar editorial standards. This article, as an NPOV encyclopedia article, should be enjoyed and accepted by both liberals and conservatives. Those who wish to read an article written from the bias of their political views have plenty of other, POV, choices. My contributions, which largely consist of restructuring, compressing without changing meaning, and adding neutral and well-sourced facts, have been intended to protect future readers from the frustration that I faced when looking for details about Clinton's role as first lady of Arkansas. All I could find were claims that some people said that she should or shouldn't have changed her name when she did, and that she worked with someone who committed suicide, and Clinton may or may not have murdered him. As I continued to look for material on Clinton's role as first lady, I discovered, distractingly, that every investigation determinined Clinton was innocent of murder, in fact no charges had been filed, but that detractors remained suspicious; that detractors thought that a first lady shouldn't play an active political role; and that somehow the fact that Bill Clinton was a Baby Boomer caused controversy. Such poorly-structured descriptions of past and present controversies were splattered throughout the article, and there were insufficient neutral facts of the kind that would be expected from an encyclopedia entry. All of the controversies remain in the article, but they have now been placed under clearly-labelled and indexed headers in the "Controversies" section, which alerts the reader that there is considerable dispute over the accuracy and/or relevance of the associated "facts." You should note that the "Controversies" section existed before my contributions but the same controversies mentioned in that section were also splattered throughout the entire article. Our Clinton page has the relatively largest "Controversies" section of any comparable page for political figures on Wikipedia. Hopefully, over time, as we add more NPOV, rather than politically motivated, facts, which are sorely needed, balance will be restored. To address your final accusation, if you look at the history page, you will see that I spent over 36 hours contributing to this page. My changes were hardly at the rate of one per minute. Your contributions have been valuable, and as you will notice, none of them have been removed from the article unless they were either provably false or both controversial and unsourced. It's with a desire to learn more about Clinton that I look forward to reading future substantive additions from you. luketh 01:44, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Wasted, I think we can be great allies in making this a good page. As a Wikipedia article, we should be an NPOV repository of information. Readers can choose to read as much or as little as they desire and form whichever opinions, hopefully consistent with the facts, that they choose. If a given piece of information isn't universally accepted by rational people, including all contributors to this page, to be both relevant to a given biographical section and factually correct, then, as good editors, we should place it in the "Controversies" section. In this way, all facts, rumors, suspicions, claims, counter-claims, etc... are covered in substantial detail, and, at the same time, no reader who is using this site as a knowledge base is forced to be concerned about either anti-Clinton or pro-Clinton political talking points. Everyone has the choice to read the "Controversies" section where each controversy is clearly marked and indexed. If it seems suitable to you, we can provide readers with links to POV literature in designated "Links" sections, so that readers can supplement this NPOV article with the POV of their choice. luketh 02:04, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Wasted Time: This article still needs a great deal of substantive additions. Any help would be appreciated. What policy positions has Senator Clinton taken? What's her vision? Her goals? What major legislation did she pass as senator? What causes did she champion as a first lady? What have been her major accomplishments? Her major setbacks? A lot of questions remain to be answered, and, as authors of an encyclopedia article on Senator Clinton, it's our job to answer them through good research and high-quality writing. luketh 9 July 2005 17:42 (UTC)

Use of "Mrs."

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)

View from a foreign land

I'm not am American but I've noticed something...do her opponents have to resort to personal scandel because they can't compete with her on policy?

I'm wondering why they are so terrified of her if they don't think she can win?

Response: Since Mrs. Clinton has tried very hard to conceal her true ideologies from the American public, it is very difficult to show her contradictions without involving her personal life. That is the only time she takes off her "public face" and shows her true self. Careful research of her past reveals college professors who found her to be an ardent socialist and sympathizer with Communist causes. She has frequently espoused ideas that are at the very core of socialism. Socialized medicine ("HillaryCare") and an expansion of social security are two of the most obvious examples. She is a strong proponent of a graduated income tax, a principle at the core of Marxism. Her senate voting record earns her a score of 30 where 1 is the most liberal and 100 is the most conservative. She is definitely left of center despite her recent attempts to appear more centrist.

Nowhere is this "public face" versus private self more evident than during the Lewisnky scandal. She claims to be an ardent feminist and defender of women's rights, yet her husband by all accounts has been a serial womanizer for the last thirty years. To think that she had no knowledge of this is stretching credulity beyond the breaking point. Ergo, she knew about it and put up with it, perhaps even concealing it when it threatened to get public. Why would an ardent feminist and defender of women's rights do such a thing? The obvious answer is that she is riding Bill Clinton's coattails in an attempt to gain more political power, and that she has no actual interest in Bill Clinton himself. It is reported that she went into a tirade against Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky affair, not because of the actual affair but instead because Mr. Clinton was sloppy enough to get caught. If true, such actions speak volumes about her actual intentions and how she views the Clinton marriage.

White House insiders during the Clinton years report Mrs. Clinton as being a shrewd, coldly calculating woman that had not a scruple in her. The TravelGate scandal exposed some of Mrs. Clinton's methods for dealing with those who did not kowtow to her properly. It also exposed her rather crude and abusive language, again showing a side of her that she works very hard to conceal in public. At various Democratic and liberal fundraisers Mrs. Clinton has nearly shouted herself hoarse working herself up into a frenzy. She's been quoted on the record as saying that "we (meaning the government) are going to take things away from you for the common good." She was referring to taking money and/or private property away from those who have it and transfering it to those who do not. This kind of "income transfer" is again a Marxist principle and gives insight into just what Hillary Clinton might do if she were in a position of ultimate power.

Liberal member vs. plain vanilla member

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)

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)

• at least as far as her carrer as a senator goes, she's been pretty conservative, I mean for the most part, other than the snow, you'd have a real hard time telling upstate new york from rural texas, people just assume anyone in new york must be super liberal to win the state, to the point where people from other states even have to add the 'liberal' tag to nazis like rudy, who couldn't possibly be a bigger right winger without literally turning into hitler,

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)

First Lady of the United States

Hilary Clinton Edit

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_clinton

Included there: “In 1993 the President asked her to chair the Task Force on National Health Care Reform, dedicated to reforming the America health care system, commonly known as the Clinton health care plan, which was rejected by Republicans in Congress and was abandoned in September 1994.”

However, it’s rejection required Democratic opposition as it was a Congress significantly controlled by Democratics: In 1993 there were 57 Democratic Senators vs 43 Republicans. The Democratic party margin in the House of Representatives was 258 (plus 1 Socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont) compared to 176 Republicans.

You have it correct at see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan “The plan, sometimes referred to as "Hillary Care" (usually by opponents) was initially well-received by the public, press, and political leaders, and it seemed virtually certain to pass through the Democratic-controlled Congress.”

“On September 26, 1994, Senate majority leader George Mitchell [Democrat – Maine] announced that the plan was dead, at least for that session of Congress.”

This change was made by someone, by taking "Republicans in" out of the original sentence. In the future, just make the change yourself. Wasted Time R 8 July 2005 17:42 (UTC)

NPOV tag

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)

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)

Name change

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)

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)

Photo search

Anyone know where a (low-resolution and/or fair use) photo of graduating senior Hillary Rodham giving the Wellesley commencement address might be? I've seen one in the past but couldn't find it now. That would be a great addition to the article. Wasted Time R 22:03, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

This is the closest I've got: http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/usa/hillary-clinton/

Hmm, good find but no way to know date or rights. On the other hand, this whole rotten.com biography is amusingly-but-fairly satirical, so I've added it as an external link. Wasted Time R 12:08, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Sockpuppet and Vandal User:172.172.170.232

You are both the most annoying sockpuppet and the stupidest. I had nothing to do with that source.[[2] or the original edit that made some absurd claim. I only went to the source and recorded what was and was not in the source. --Noitall 03:19, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, did you actually make a retalitory Talk page article? all for me? wow, myne was first, you lose myne is bigger than yours.. but seriously, look at it from my POV you added [[3]], and I certianly didn't realize the whole paragraph was added by a 205.x.x.x, or I would have removed the whole thing, but you didn't remove it either, you didn't even say anything, or explain your edits, just added the phrase "Does Hillary's mind create a threesome, a porno flick with her, Monica and Bill" --172.172.170.232 03:27, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the anon editor's contributions are misleading, but personal attacks won't help this situation get any better. It doesn't seem like User:172.172.170.232 is a sockpuppet of anyone else, it's just someone editing anonymously from AOL. If you have proof that they are a logged-in user, please provide it. Rhobite 03:30, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

• My only proof is that he apparently just started editing today and he immediately gets in Wiki edit wars, knows to put comments on talk pages, knows what a sockpuppet is (very well), and researches others' edits. --Noitall 03:33, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

• Let me be more specific, he did all that in 1 and 1/2 hours. --Noitall 03:38, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

AOL users change IP addresses all the time. Not his fault, that's just how it works. I'm assuming he's edited before, but there's nothing nefarious about that. Rhobite 03:44, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this user seems to be fully aware of the fact that his IP changes all the time, and is willing to take advantage of it. Curse you, AOL! android79 03:47, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

and unfortunatly, this user Noitall seems to be fully aware of the fact that he can register as many accounts as he wants to, and seems willing to take advatage of it--172.141.55.83 04:26, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I could be wrong, but it was my understanding that you only get a new IP address if you intentionally erase the cookies on your computer to give you a new IP address. And the fact that he immediately jumped on me with personal attack the very first edit I made and continued it on my talk page and still continues it on this and other pages is RfC-able whether a sockpuppet or not.--Noitall 03:50, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

have you ever used a computer before? did you actually imply that cookies are used to rotate ip address?--172.141.55.83 04:17, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Wow, android, good find! Any guesses whether over the age of 18 or not? My guess is sitting on Daddy's computer --Noitall 03:53, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Again, the insults are not likely to help the situation. Rhobite 03:54, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

I will go back to my original statement and ignore him, but the RfC is ready to go (if we can find out what sockpuppet he appears as next) --Noitall 04:00, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd be much less likely to certify if the personal attacks are flying from both sides. No need to egg him on, just put out the fire and be done with it. android79 04:02, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

• Advice taken by both of you. --Noitall 04:12, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

National Journal Survey

I have removed the quote "In 2004, the National Journal's study of roll-call votes rated Clinton as being more liberal than 71% of her Senate colleagues of both parties. By comparison, the least liberal Democrat had a 51% rating and the most liberal a 94% rating [4]."

MSNBC must have made a mistake when reporting this study. There are 100 senators. The most liberal Senator, namely Hawaii Democrat Daniel Akaka, must by definition be more liberal than all other Senators, that is, more liberal than 100% of his colleagues or, at the very least, 99% if he's included. Yet he received a rating of only 94. Since it's not clear what these ratings represent without consulting the National Journal, we cannot, with good editorial standards, report it.

This is an interesting survey and I commend Wasted Time for including it. It's very frustrating that we don't have access to the actual results.

See this paper which explains the National Journal method in more detail. In 2003 Kerry was most liberal with a 97 rating. Not sure why the "most" rating doesn't get 99 or 100, but probably a consequence of the numerical analysis techniques they use. National Journal seems to have a good reputation (last year's result was unavoidably skewed because Kerry skipped many votes, not an issue with Hill). So if I was you, I would pass this on your standards. Anon and Agnostic.

The percentages make perfect sense; they are derived from roll call counts. The senator with the highest percentage of votes on the liberal side is the most liberal senator, but may not vote liberal 100% of the time.

What HRC's memoirs and two other books say on the name change

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)

The percentages make perfect sense; they are derived from roll call counts. The senator with the highest percentage of votes on the liberal side is the most liberal senator, but may not vote liberal 100% of the time.

So what to make of the above?

We should give the most weight to HRC's account. It's clear that until 1982 she was using Rodham for everything, and the article should reflect that. It's also clear that keeping her name was hurting her and Bill politically in Arkansas, since she acknowledges that. Therefore the article can say that her 1982 name change was part of Bill's regaining-the-office effort; there's no need to brand this a "controversy", since again HRC acknowledges all this in Living History.

However, my previous formulation that in 1982 she changed to HC and in 1992 she changed that to HRC, now looks to be incorrect. I think we should just say she changed to Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1982, and leave it at that. If I can later track down the post-1992-election White House press announcement about using HRC, and see some reportage about how this was different than what she used in the 1992 campaign, we can consider adding that, but for now there's not enough to go on.

Luke, does this sound reasonable? Wasted Time R 16:33, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Wasted. Your proposed compromise sounds reasonable. I agree that it's important to call Clinton by the name that she predominately used during any given period of time. Personally, I haven't had the chance to review that section of Living History, and I'm glad that you took that initiative. Is it truly the case that Clinton said in Living History something to the effect of: "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" or was this material from another book? If it's from Living History, then it seems clear that Clinton was using the name "Rodham" privately as well as professionally.

Yes, those are paraphrases from Living History, p. 91-93.

What's curious is that she said "I've been Mrs. Bill Clinton since the day we were married" which seems to indicate that, at least politically, Clinton may have by going by "Mrs. Clinton" already.

If she said this (the Morris book may not be too reliable, I didn't examine it in detail but it seemed to be anti-Clintons), it may have been spin control on her part to make it seem like this wasn't just a bit of political expediency. Or it maybe technically her last name was Clinton once she was married, even though she never used it. Without taking a trip to the Little Rock public records office, we're not going to know :-)

Those who didn't like the Clintons would be sure to exaggerate Clinton's professional, and even private, use of "Rodham," to make it appear as if she was "militant" against being called "Mrs. Clinton," in her capacity as first lady, which may not have been the case. As you have read that portion of the book, and I haven't yet, and I trust your reporting capabilities, your proposed compromise of using "Rodham" in all capacities pre-1982 is acceptable. I would request, however, that the use of Clinton in a direct reference to their marriage pre-1982, such as "the Clinton's married," be acceptable. The material that you discovered through your research will significantly improve the "Name Change" section. By using "Rodham" conspicuously pre-1982 and using "Clinton" conspicuously post-1982, the reader will be alerted to the fact that the name change took place at approximately that time. For additional details, any curious reader can read the "Name Change" section. Since Clinton may have never legally changed her name, the name change most likely took place gradually, rather than abruptly, and the motivation, which could range from political interest to personal pressure by Bill Clinton because her use of "Rodham" was hurting his career, is unclear and requires a long description, it's best treated in the "Name Change" section. In accordance with your earlier post above, we should both be happy with this compromise. You will be able to call Clinton by the name with which she was commonly known at a given time, and I won't be bothered by direct references to name changes in the sections devoted to Clinton's accomplishments. luketh 17:30, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

If we don't cover the controversy associated with the "Name Change" section, then we could place it in the "Culture" section, because the interest in this issue could also be viewed as a "culture clash" of sorts rather than a "controversy." There are good arguments on both sides for placing it in either section. Clearly, given the interest in this topic, it should be covered in detail. luketh 17:43, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I see your changes, Wasted, and as they seem to be carefully worded, including the reference to when Rodham began to use the name Rodham Clinton, they form an acceptable compromise. Hopefully, both of us are happy with this compromise and will be able maintain it. luketh 18:43, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I sure hope so! I also changed some Hillary's to Rodham's in the early section, for events after she was 18, on the same grounds that you've expressed, that it's disrespectful in formal articles to call adults by their first name. Wasted Time R 18:58, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Good changes. Hey, Wasted, I'm not sure about the Vernon Jordan reference in the "Culture" section. This seems to make that section somewhat controversial. My guess is that this reference to Jordan was from one of the two books, other than Living History, that you cited. Can we remove this reference? The other option would be to place this entire section in the "Controversies" section. After all, it's not directly related to "Modern Culture." If we leave it where it is, we may need to rename the "Culture" section. luketh 19:12, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

No, she says it was Vernon Jordan. It's not controversial ... it's what she says happened, and no one else disagrees.

In general, Luke, if you're putting all this effort into the article, you should probably have Living History alongside you as you do it. The Internet is basically a lousy resource for serious historical writing, and LH is much more likely to be correct on any point than what you find on web pages. As these kinds of in-career political memoirs go, it's not bad (I read parts of it when it first came out). The downside is, there's 500-odd pages of events in there and you'll have to decide what's worthy to go into this article.... Wasted Time R 19:22, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

So can we move changing names back to Culture? That's exactly what it was, a culture clash between her more modern ways and the more conservative late 1970s Arkansas. Wasted Time R 19:34, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

For example, if she had said, I started using "Clinton" because I didn't want Chelsea's teachers to get confused at school, but everyone believed she was really doing it to help get Bill back into governor, that would be a controversy. But she doesn't say that; she says straight out she did it to help get Bill back into governor. No dispute, no controversy. Wasted Time R 19:39, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Alright. We can place it back into "Culture." And your suggestion is good. I'll get Living History from the library tomorrow. luketh 19:44, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Why this and not that?

Why is Moving to the Center a controversy? Politicians shift their image and speeches and sometimes their positions to the center all the time. So did George Bush & his dad & everybody else. That's how you win elections, nuthin' wrong with it, SOP. And why is Relationship with Bill NOT a controversy? That's ALL controversy and rumors and crap like that. I dont get it.

• The division of this page into biography, views, culture, and controversy is a bit of a mystery. I never read a biography that was organized the same way.

It's a compromise that seems to work as some people are committed to flooding the article with POV. I note also your act of vandalism in which you included "#REDIRECT [obscenity]" which leads me to conclude that you too, 152.163.100.74, are part of the aforementioned group. luketh 19:03, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Luke, a lot of these anons including that one are posting from AOL, which uses a revolving set of IP addresses that change with each sign-on. See User_talk:152.163.100.74. So you can't tell anything by the "user"'s history, since it's really different people. Wasted Time R 19:31, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Also, Luke, how about letting the National Journey survey result back in? While the exact methodology doesn't seem to be available to us, it does have a good reputation for non-partisanship as the post below states. How about if the wording is changed to this:

"In 2004, the National Journal's study of roll-call votes rated Clinton as having a 71% liberal rating relative to her Senate colleagues of both parties. By comparison, the least liberal Democrat had a 51% rating and the most liberal a 94% rating [5]."

This would duck the question of why someone doesn't have a 100 or 99% rating. Wasted Time R 19:31, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Hi Wasted, good to see you again. About the National Journal survey, there should be a way to modify the wording to reach an acceptable compromise. Wasn't sure about removing that study but didn't want to alter it without knowing what the numbers really meant. As long as we cite the article from Stanford, explaining its methodology, that someone posted on this talk page, it shouldn't be confusing. Regarding the vandalism, I'm sure the user with IP 152.163.100.74 who posted the previous comment on the talk page was the same user who committed the vandalism just a short while before. It's extremely unlikely that, even with revolving IP addresses, one user editing Clinton's entry would receive that IP address, then another user also editing Clinton's entry at the same time would receive the exact same IP address, and then the first user, again editing Clinton's entry at the same time, would subsequently get the same IP address again. The chances of such a coincidence occurring must be similar to the chances of an atom, arbitrarily chosen from the solar system, being part of the penny sitting on my desk. With probability of approximately 1, the vandal was correctly identified. luketh 21:03, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

You're confused I think: 152.163.101.12 is the IP address who posted to the talk page (and took the time to fix some section formatting, very unlike a vandal), while 152.163.100.74 is the IP address of several edits (and likely several people) to the article itself. You know, it is legitimately possible that not everybody agrees with your division system of this article! I certainly don't, as you know. As someone pointed out (clumsily) above, it makes no sense to consider "Move to the center" a controversy when "Relationship with Bill Clinton" is considered a non-controversy. The definition of what goes where is very ad hoc, based on your personal opinion. A political scientist would say that by definition, all politics is controversy, since politics is an endless debate about how power and resources are apportioned, and for every decision reached, someone is going to be unhappy. Wasted Time R 21:37, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

You're right about my confusion.

The post to the discussion page to which I was replying is

(cur) (last) 10:21, 27 July 2005 152.163.101.12 (Fix formatting and comment)

The posts to the main article, the last of which is the vandalism to which I was referring, are

1. (cur) (last) 12:12, 27 July 2005 152.163.100.74
2. (cur) (last) 10:30, 27 July 2005 152.163.100.74 (→The 2000 Senate race - Bill was still president when Hillary sworn into Senate)
3. (cur) (last) 10:26, 27 July 2005 152.163.100.74 (→The 2000 Senate race - Add other reason Giuliani withdrew.)

However, these IP addresses are so similar, and the times of the posts so close together, it's very likely that they were assigned to the same person. Consider that 152.163.101.12 made no recent posts, nor possibly any posts, to the main article. If I am wrong, I apologize to the editor who I falsely accused of vandalism.

The AOL IP addresses can change rapidly. If you look at the talk pages of AOL users, you'll see admin warnings against vandalism being misinterpreted by someone legitimately using the same account only minutes later. Also note that the vandal came in an hour and a half after all the other edits, that's more than enough time for it to have switched. Wasted Time R 22:44, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I unequivocally apologize for my accusation which, as I now understand, was most likely wrong. luketh 22:47, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

In regard to the organization of the article, this division was not introduced by me. Note that the "Controversies" section already existed before I began my edits, and the "Culture" section was added later. Indeed I was the first to add the "Political Views" section, a much needed section for any politician. Modifications by numerous editors since my original post have continued to alter this section. Discussion and compromise needs to be reached concerning any section which any editor deems controversial, rather than any one editor imposing his or her personal opinions on others.

I, too, am opposed to the current division of the article. It's my opinion that no POV material whatsoever should be a Wikipedia article. The overwhelming amount of controversy that some believe is relevant to Clinton's article is beginning to undermine our claims of NPOV. If reasonable people disagree about the factual nature and relevance of an edit, that edit should be removed. In this regard, with respect to the editors of this page, I am in the minority. Since some, including you, would prefer to keep controversy in the article, it should remain in the "Controversies" section where it has been since before I arrived.

The article before you arrived can be seen at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hillary_Rodham_Clinton&oldid=18357396 There were only five things in Controversies: Cattle futures, Whitewater, Hasidic pardons, Gandhi remark, Rosen acquital. These are all discrete scandals, mini-scandals, or pseduo-scandals, outside the general biographical timeline. No discussion was split, part in a regular section, part in controversies. That's what you added: now, the commencement speech, the First Lady role, It Takes a Village, the maybe-presidential campgain, and even her name are all divided up into pieces. I don't think that makes any sense.

Articles evolve over time. Simply reading the old article or reading the numerous complaints about it on this talk page would be enough evidence that reading that old article was enough to give anyone heartburn, and, after reading, most readers wouldn't have learned much at all about Clinton. The article as it exists today is far superior as a result of numerous additions including the additions by both you and me. The controversies before, for example the name-change controversy, was splattered all over the article, instead of being centralized in one place. The fact that Clinton wrote a book and the controversy surrounding the book are in fact two separate events and they took place at separate times. The writing of the book took place before the controversy at one point in time, while the controversy, which includes many details irrelevant to Clinton's role as an author, is ongoing.

I think this is all wrong, but since you're willing to make 150 edits in a row to back up your view and I'm not, I lose ...

Well, I'd prefer that we continue to talk about specific changes that will make you happy. luketh 23:52, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

As for the commencement speech, the fact that Clinton gave a speech at her commencement is important NPOV fact. Any controversy about offending the prior speaker, as it is poorly cited and relies on hearsay, shouldn't even be included in the article, but, for the sake of compromise, it has its place, sorted by time, in the Controversies section. To include such a poorly cited, and likely incorrect, "fact" in the biographical section would destroy NPOV. luketh 23:26, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I looked for evidence of this and couldn't find anything that wasn't third-hand on some partisan blog, so I've happily yanked it. Wasted Time R 23:33, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

In your way of looking at things, how would a Wikipedia article on a person be any different from that person's official website? HRC's website no doubt contains a bio that omits any blemishes, and excerpts from a bunch of her speeches. That seems to be all that you want to include here. What's the point? Wasted Time R 23:10, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Pro-Clinton propaganda is just as POV as anti-Clinton propaganda. This entry is not a discussion page where people can post whatever they feel like posting. The material included in this entry, in accordance with Wikipedia standards, should be NPOV material grounded in fact. If you, Wasted, dispute the neutrality of any material in the biographical section, you should explain and cite your reasons, and then place that offending material in the Controversies section. Your argument in the preceding post is quite good, and I retract my previous assertion that the Controversies section is unimportant to an encyclopedia article. As you pointed out quite accurately, it IS important to include the controversies so that readers can understand all of the controversies surrounding Clinton. Currently, for ease of reading, each controversy has its own section indexed through the table of contents. This is the best compromise we have reached so far, but, as always, I remain open to considering alternate compromises that you or other editors may suggest. What's important to me is to protect those readers who are using this site to write research papers or to learn what is true and what is not true, through well-documented and NPOV sources, when they hear distorted claims and counterclaims made by pro-Clinton and anti-Clinton forces. luketh 23:40, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm in agreement with the adept observation made by the anonymous user in the first post of this section that the "Relationship with Bill Clinton" section contains too much controversy. It's only in deference to you that I haven't separated it into its factual and controversial portions. Recall your edit:

"You're not going to get much help if you insist on soft-pedaling the Lewinsky scandal. If Bill had just admitted a sexual relationship with her up front, the world would have moved on. Instead he tried a game of twisted semantics under oath and got impeached. Don't make the same mistake! (And if JonGwynne weren't banned he'd be ripping your edits to pieces by now.) Wasted Time R 8 July 2005 17:47 (UTC)"

If you've changed your opinion about the relevance of including this controversy in the biographical portion of the article, let us divide the existing section into two sections, one controversial and the other not, giving each their place in the article.

Finally, as someone who majored in political science in college, I disagree with your characterization of political science. The purpose of political science, and the reason for including "science" in the name, is to restore reason and the scientific method to politics. Politics that is unaffected by "political science" is indeed overwhelmingly controversial. When science is applied to politics, a consensus among reasonable people can often be found. luketh 22:36, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I'd be interested in hearing of any cases where what your last sentence describes, has actually happened. Wasted Time R 23:10, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Wasted, Wasted, Wasted: the world's truly not as gloomy or as antagonistic as your skepticism implies. luketh 23:49, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I restored the survey with just a minor modification to your wording, removing the least liberal Democrat and most liberal Senator numbers, since the survey, which is conducted annually, has different highest and lowest numbers each time. The goal of the survey, according to the article from Princeton and Stanford, is to assign numbers from 0-100 based on where a Senator appears in the political spectrum relative to the Senate as a whole. This would explain why the Senator with the highest rating one year received only a rating of 94. Presumably this Senator wasn't liberal enough to warrant a rating of 100, that is, he didn't vote the liberal platform straight through. Is this wording acceptable? luketh 21:24, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I edited the numbers in an attempt to be more accurate. According to the cited article from Princeton and Stanford, the National Journal's study assigns ratings from 1 to 100, with 1 being most liberal and 100 being most conservative. The MSNBC article claimed that Clinton was more liberal than 71% of her "colleagues," which seems to mean, considering that they said the most liberal Senator was more liberal than 94% of his "colleagues," that they simply reversed the ratings and changed them to percentages. This would imply that Clinton received a rating of 30 since 29 possible points are lower than 30 just as 29 possible points are higher than 71. luketh 21:35, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

OK, I guess. People will spend enough time figuring this out that they won't have the energy to vandalize the article! Wasted Time R 21:41, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

The one change that would make me happy ...

Well, I'd prefer that we continue to talk about specific changes that will make you happy. luketh 23:52, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

The one change that would make me most happy is to call her Hillary Rodham throughout the early section (no person named Hillary Clinton ever attended Wellesley or gave a commencement speech there), and put her 1982 and 1993 name changes in their natural place, no controversy attached, just straight NPOV biographical info. This is what Britannica Online does with their HRC article. This is what MSN Encarta starts to do in their HRC article, although they change to "Clinton" a bit too soon. Same story with the AOL Time Warner HRC article. Hillary Rodham was quite an accomplished person before she became Hillary Clinton; that's probably what motivated her to later want to be called Hillary Rodham Clinton. In general Wikipedia believes in honoring self-identification, and I think we've failed to do that here. You said in one of your previous rebuttals that using the married name throughout someone's life is standard biographical procedure, but I believe it is not, and I've now given three established references that use Rodham at the start. Wasted Time R 02:14, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Wasted, I'm sure we can find a compromise that will make both of us happy. The main difficulty in treating Clinton's eventual name change from Rodham to Clinton is that no one really knows when she changed her name. Without seeing Clinton's marriage license, we don't know whether she actually changed her name to Clinton at the time of her marriage, merely choosing to use Rodham to continue her professional career, or whether she legally retained the name Rodham at that time, possibly never legally changing her name to Clinton. Many professional people go by names that aren't legally their names, for example, actors and people who use nicknames. Others choose to legally change their names during marriage but continue to use their prior names for the sake of the name recognition that they've built over many years. Two of the entries you cited, by Encarta and AOL, change quietly from Rodham to Clinton at the point of Clinton's marriage. The third entry you cited, Britannica, is a special "Women in American History" series. For a series such as that one, when in doubt, I'm sure they will be as feministic as possible. They, in fact, go straight from Rodham pre-1992 to Rodham Clinton post-1992. The ordinary Britannica article on Clinton requires a subscription so we can't see the approach they use. There are three issues to consider. First, we don't know the exact times that Clinton changed her name. Second, we don't know the legal details surrounding her name changes. Third, people change their names all the time when they marry so it's really not that significant unless someone is trying to use it to start a controversy. Questions about Clinton's motives for changing her name when she did and whether she should or shouldn't have changed her name at another time, which is indeed a controversy, are already covered in the Controversies section. An acceptable compromise to me would be to use "Rodham" for Clinton's early life and then switch to "Clinton" after her marriage. Would this be acceptable to you? This is the policy adopted by Encarta and AOL. The other possibility would be to use Rodham all the way through to 1992 and then use Rodham Clinton, but there are two problems with this. The first problem is that Clinton only used "Rodham" for the first few years of this time, and, even then, she may have used "Rodham" primarily for her legal career. It's likely that many people called her "Mrs. Clinton" even during those early years. The second problem with this approach is that most people, including possibly Clinton herself, at this time think of "Rodham" as a middle name. Using "Rodham" and then "Rodham Clinton" seems to be more controversial than using "Rodham" and then "Clinton" from the time of marriage. Even more controversial is trying to say exactly when and how Clinton changed her name, the details of which are highly in dispute, and, thus, controversial. Hopefully you will find the approach used by Encarta and AOL of using "Rodham" for early life and then "Clinton" after marriage an acceptable compromise. Note that there is some precedent for using "Clinton" throughout her life, for example at [6] and [7]. luketh 03:10, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about legal name changes or lack thereof, I'm just interested in the name she was publicly known by, in newspapers, public announcements, and the like. After her marriage she continued to use Hillary Rodham, until she changed to using Hillary Clinton as part of Bill's 1982 regain the governorship campaign. See [8] and [9], the references that have been in our article previously, both from reputable sources. (It's clear that she made a point of not using Clinton before the 1982 campaign, because some Arkansans didn't like it. Encarta and AOL got sloppy on this.) She remained Hillary Clinton until shortly after the Nov 1992 presidential election, when she informed the press that from now on she would be known as Hillary Rodham Clinton. See [10] again. That's why our article has the title it does; if she hadn't done that, this article would be called Hillary Clinton. Contrary to what you say, I do not believe that any of these details are in dispute. (Can you find a good source that specifically addresses the name issue, that does not agree with the above timeline?) Her motivations may be in dispute, but I don't care about that.

I don't propose to ever call her "Rodham Clinton" in our article, because she doesn't use that form herself nor does anyone else. I simply propose that before 1982 she's Hillary Rodham or just Rodham, between 1982 and 1992 she's Hillary Clinton or Clinton, and after 1992 she's Hillary Rodham Clinton or Hillary Clinton or Clinton or Mrs. Clinton or Senator Clinton. In other words, I want to call her the same thing that newspaper articles at the time would have called her. That doesn't seem unreasonable.

I am willing to leave it at that and not drag in any controversies that may have been attached to the name non-change and the later changes. But, if you feel that they are important to her story, we can in addition have an entry in the controversies section that explains that Arkansans weren't happy with her using her maiden name, blah blah, and cite that. I'm ok either way on that. My goal is simply to have the events in her life associated with the name she was publicly using at that time. Wasted Time R 04:07, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that Encarta and AOL Time Warner, or even Britannica for that matter, were "sloppy" by not reporting the name changes according to the timeline that you propose. World Book follows the same policy, which seems to be standard, of using "Clinton" immediately after Clinton assumed her role as first lady of Arkansas. The two articles that you cited above, from Washington Post and Salon, especially the Salon article, are extremely anti-Clinton. Note these anti-Clinton quotes from the Salon article: "This is just the latest alteration for the woman who's changed her name almost as often as her home state." and "Rumors that she will soon change her name to an unpronounceable symbol and go by "the Senate Candidate Formerly Known as Hillary" were not confirmed by her campaign." Note the following anti-Clinton quotes from the Washington Post article: "Or to put it another way: If Hillary's choices are okay, are there any choices that aren't?" and "Personal choices are embedded in the individual's own moral and ethical value structure. Given this, are there any choices she would not salute?" Both articles are highly controversial with an anti-Clinton tone. After a significant search, I can't find any neutral or liberal sources that either confirm or discredit the timeline you suggest.

As such, I'm willing to compromise and include the name references according to the timeline that you suggest. However, for this to be acceptable to me, such changes should take place quietly, without direct reference to the "fact" that she changed her name. In this way, the article's use of Clinton's names will not contradict the timeline you suggest, but, at the same time, the article will not make claims, that aren't verifiable by neutral or liberal sources, that Clinton did change her name at precisely the times that you suggest. As I mentioned in my prior post, we aren't sure as to the common usage of her name between the time of her marriage and 1982, whether the controversy was about her use of "Rodham" in her legal career while privately she allowed people to call her "Mrs. Clinton," or whether, truly, as you suggest, she insisted that her name was "Rodham" in all spheres of life. Clearly there's no proof that she legally changed her name, made some specific pronouncement to the press corps, or had any other formal name-change ceremony when she began using one name more frequently than others in her political career. Your claim that "she informed the press that from now on she would be known as Hillary Rodham Clinton" is unverifiable by neutral or liberal sources and, your source, the Salon article, includes that claim immediately between the two anti-Clinton quotes that I posted above, making it very likely that this claim is another smear in the same vein as the surrounding quotes.

The entire anti-Clinton paragraph from the Salon article that, without a reference, claims some specific pronouncement by Clinton to the press corps is: "This is just the latest alteration for the woman who's changed her name almost as often as her home state. She was born Hillary Diane Rodham, and she remained Hillary Rodham, at least professionally, after she married Bill Clinton in 1975. After her husband lost his 1980 bid for reelection as Arkansas governor, she dropped her maiden name at the insistence of Clinton's advisors. After Bill was elected president in 1992, Hillary told the press corps that she wanted to be known as Hillary Rodham Clinton. Rumors that she will soon change her name to an unpronounceable symbol and go by "the Senate Candidate Formerly Known as Hillary" were not confirmed by her campaign." The validity of any information in this paragraph, given its clearly anti-Clinton motivation, is highly suspect.

If you abide by this careful compromise, using Clinton's names according to the timeline you suggest, without referencing directly any name changes, a compromise which, according to your preceding post, will make you happy, then your edits will be acceptable to me. It's my opinion that, in addition, the name change controversy is important enough to warrant its own section in the Controversies portion of the entry. luketh 05:03, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I found a reputable neutral source, the National First Ladies' Library that claims "A year after her marriage, Hillary Clinton, retaining her maiden name for work, joined the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Arkansas." The article goes on to describe how Clinton had been so upset by the charges leveled at her that she had told a reporter: "the only way a working attorney who happened to also be the governor's wife could have avoided any controversy would have been if she had "stayed home and baked cookies,"" a comment which caused additional controversy. Now that we know the truth, if you carefully reread the paragraph from the Salon article I quoted, you will see that it says "she remained Hillary Rodham, at least professionally, after she married Bill Clinton in 1975." Even this anti-Clinton article wasn't willing to risk a slander lawsuit by completely lying that Clinton had maintained the name "Rodham" in any capacity other than professionally as a lawyer. In light of this new information, which shows that the name-change issue cannot be factually outlined without deeply delving into controversy, I would hope that we can abide by the standard procedure used by World Book, Encarta, and AOL Time Warner, of referring to Clinton as "Rodham" before her marriage and as "Clinton" after her marriage. In light of the facts, if you insist, references to Clinton pre-1982 in her capacity as a lawyer can be "Rodham" but in every other capacity should be "Clinton." luketh 05:49, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Washington Post sources confirm name change for Bill's 1982 campaign.

Washington Post 02/28/82 Changing All Those Changes James R. Dickenson and David S. Broder

And he's belatedly heeding the advice of those who said his image was out of tune with his conservative state. Clinton's ears show under his newly cropped hair, he has replaced his bearded young aides with clean-shaven, middle-aged men, and Hillary Rodham will not only give up her law practice to campaign full-time, she also will stop using her maiden name and henceforth be known as Mrs. Bill Clinton.

Washington Post 10/28/82 THE 1982 ELECTIONS: THE ARKANSAS GOVERNOR'S RACE Kenneth Bredemeier

His neatly layered brown hair is a shade shorter, and his lawyer wife, who went by her maiden name of Hillary Rodham in 1980, now campaigns full time with her husband and tells voters she's Hillary Clinton. --Herb West 06:28, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Junior vs. Freshman

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)

What would Lincoln be

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)

"Controversies" section is getting ridiculous

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)

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)

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)

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)

Excellent edits. The section looks much better now. Thanks. 66.36.133.229 18:01, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

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)

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)

The Name Game

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)

Cite request

152.163.100.74 (talk · contribs) 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)

References

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Article Size

This article is 65 KB, and is larger than reccommended. See Wikipedia:Article size for information on how to make it shorter. Thank you, [[User:Mysekurity|Mysekurity]] ^{[[additions | e-mail]]} _{03:11, 31 October 2005 (UTC)}

External Links are only pro-Hillary

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)

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)

I've corrected the heading. Thanks. patsw 16:43, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Too weak for lever pullers

With the war on terror, Americans will want a strong leader with a military background. When it comes time to pull the lever, Hillary, her lack of international and military experience will make her too weak for voters. George Allen is in the same boat. Gilluiani's pro-choice stance is too liberal for the GOP and the nation is not ready (I am) for a female, black president, with no prior service record (maybe in peace time). That leaves a possible McCain / Kerry show down in 2008 with McCain winning easily.

Voting record

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)

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)