Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton controversies

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[edit] Introductory comments

Right wingnut really have a hard on for hating Hillary Clinton. [21:28, 27 February 2006 132.241.245.49]

um...yea; I think that's pretty accurate; this page exemplifies an enormous problem with Wikipedia in which highly biased and frequently amateurish contributors try to emphasize "controversy" in an attempt to discredit someone they dislike. Say all of the controversial things in as much detail as possible to try and paint the person as an unstable public figure. It's a sad, hilarious little game that people play. [23:29, 2 May 2006 70.91.137.57]

Who would possibly ever contribute to Wikipedia when they allow such right wing nuts to post such for Hillary Clinton. It is pure garbage. [20:19, 21 May 2006 24.242.30.224]

As First Lady, and evenmoreso as Senator, Hillary Clinton is a public figure, and gets an extra level of scrutiny as such. If she has done something that may possibly have betrayed the public trust, said issue deserves to be described here, even if the conclusion is that she did nothing wrong. And contrary to your assumption, much of the material in this article was written by Hillary supporters . Wasted Time R 17:55, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Black Panthers

The article seems to assert that Hillary WAS involved with the Panthers, even though the Snopes.com reference refutes that -- shouldn't the article say that this is a typical Urban Legend regarding Hillary, and then say that it's been debunked? Morton devonshire 18:31, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

The article simply paraphrases what the cited Snopes entry says: "... she took advantage of an opportunity to be involved in a minor, peripheral way by organizing other students to help the American Civil Liberties Union monitor the trial for civil rights violations. In any case, her tangential participation in the trial ..." It would be inaccurate to say that she had absolutely no involvement with the Panthers trial. I don't like to introduce terms like "typical urban legend" or "debunking" into this article, because that immediately frames the purpose of the article as that of defending HRC, which is not its goal. The purpose is simply to describe these various controversies and state referenced facts about what actually happened. Wasted Time R 19:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I understand. I just want to make sure that we are not asserting that the myth is actually true. I think it's important that we try to state the circumstances as factually acurate as possible, in the body of the article. It's okay to offer the web citation, but we shouldn't require the reader to read the citation to understand what the truth is -- the facts should be stated blandly in the article. Morton devonshire 19:50, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
We're reading the same words totally differently! As I read the start of the section: "Claims are sometimes made ...", that phrase immediately suggests the claims are bogus. Then: "In reality, Rodham was only ..." makes clear that a refutation is coming. Finally: "Her peripheral involvement had no effect on Yale activities or on the outcome of the trial" sums up the refutation. We have a literary equivalent of the Rashomon effect going on here :-) Wasted Time R 20:29, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I fixed it. Nobody should be confused now. Morton devonshire 20:37, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Video game controversy

I think that something should be included on her comments on the whole Jack Thompson deal and the Rockstar controversy. Anyone agree? [1:54, 9 Jun 2006 User:69.244.86.245]

Her views and proposed legistation on violent video games are already discussed in Political_views_of_Hillary_Rodham_Clinton#Video_games. What exactly is the controversy? Wasted Time R 11:56, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
The controversy is simple: she is quite ignorant in the fact that she thinks that games should be put on hell's bent course. She's a (female dog) that is set to ruin everyone's right to enjoy life. That is the obvious and clear controversy. I support the idea of video game controversy. --William Pembroke 00:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Disagreements on policy positions are not controversies, just normal politics. Controversies must involve accusations of criminal wrongdoing, ethical lapses, acute verbal gaffes, bizzare personal behavior, that sort of thing. Wasted Time R 01:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
There is an ethical lapse, it is unethical in any situation to wish to discriminate against companies for offering much needed services. In the true ethical boundaries, she is a criminal, but under law abidings, she is a "speaker of the [misinformed] people". --William Pembroke 04:18, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Libertarians might agree with you, but most others would not. Brothels, for example, are illegal in 49 of the 50 states. So again, this is a matter of political philosophy and policy, not ethics. Wasted Time R 05:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Contribution in dispute over bias

First off this "contribution" is purely by a leftwing supporter of Hillary that wishes to debunk her "controversies" largely with heresay, weasel words, and one-sided agruements without factual basis. [18:03, 25 June 2006 Sheepdog tx]

Does your complaint contain any specifics? Wasted Time R 18:26, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This Entire Article Is Example of Wiki's Pro-GOP Bias

The very existence of this entire article shows that Wikipedia has been taken over by Republicans who aim to slime and smear the Dems, while carefully sanitizing the record of their hero, Bush. I mean, Bush is PRESIDENT, people---and where is his own page on Wikipedia that details all his own "controversies"? Why does Hillary get this treatment, and Bush gets a free pass? It's a shame; Wikipedia at one time showed some promise as being a good reference resource. [00:51, 28 June 2006 66.169.99.234]

Well, I probably didn't find everything, but at a minimum there is:
George W. Bush military service controversy
George W. Bush substance abuse controversy
Professional life of George W. Bush#Texas Rangers and allegations of insider trading
George W. Bush debate prompting controversy
Public perception and assessments of George W. Bush
Need I go on? Wasted Time R 01:06, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Hillary's "controversies" list has 17 items. By contrast, Bush, who is president, only has a handful of controversy items. What's more, there are major Bush controversies (such as the allegation that the "pro-life" Bush illegally secured an abortion for his girlfriend Robin Lowman, now Robin Garner, in 1971) that don't appear anywhere in Wikipedia. While every single right-wing nutcase/talk radio allegation ever made against Bill and Hillary Clinton gets ample space in Wikipedia, the articles on Bush (particularly the high-profile main article) have been carefully sanitized to present Bush in as favorable a light as possible. Once again, I think this proves that Wiki is biased toward the GOP. The mainstream media was intimidated by threats from the GOP not to take a look at the Bush abortion story; I hope that Wikipedia isn't cowed as well and takes a stand for the truth. [06:24, 3 July 2006 66.169.99.234]
You are free to create additional articles on Bush controversies if you feel the current coverage in Wikipedia is lacking. That's how Wikipedia works. You are wrong, however, in several respects about the Hillary coverage: a) not every nutjob allegation is covered here; b) allegations in this article are dealt with in one to three paragraphs, much less than in the lengthy Bush controversy articles mentioned above; c) Hillary's "high-profile main article" is also "sanitized", in that her controversies are all relegated to here. Wasted Time R 12:05, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

"Wasted Time" is such an appropriate name. Clearly there are republican motivations at work here and on many other articles. Will be looking for other adminstration possibilities for curtailing this hijacking.--Francespeabody 04:05, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Later follow-up — check out Category:George W. Bush administration controversies if you want to see a really lonnng list of articles which are categorized as what you are looking for. Wasted Time R 10:37, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Controversies article

Each of her controversies is being defended by heresay, quoting lack of proof confirming or denying, or outright questioning of the sources without counterdefense. It's clear at this time evidence of PR dumping and history rewrites by supporters in prep for the 2008 race. In several places there is clearly been no attempt to even hide this massaging of historical data. This is not the purpose of Wiki and degrades the quality of its reliablity to the public. [14:42, 2 July 2006 Sheepdog tx, moved here from Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton ]

Please be more specific about your objections. Which particular pieces of text do you consider to be hearsay? You are right about some items having "lack of proof confirming or denying," but that is just reality ... for sections such as Whitewater, Travelgate, and Filegate, all we can do here is state what the official findings of the Independent Counsel were, and in some cases those findings contained ambiguity or doubt. What specific instances of "PR dumping", "history rewrites", or "massaging of historical data" do you see? If you are going to make such accusations, you should be prepared to back them up. Wasted Time R 18:56, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hilary Rodham Clinton misreporting

Perhaps there needs to be a Hillary Rodham Clinton misreporting article.

There's nothing controversial about the Gold Star story. Either it was a misunderstanding by Carl Limbacher or a deliberate misleading spin on the fact that the Gold Star mothers didn't get to meet with a staffer on that first unannounced visit.

A controversy has two sides. As far as I can tell the sources and Clinton's office are not disputing anything at this point. The section should not be in this article. patsw 02:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. I had thought this needed to be here as a debunking exercise, and so reverted your first removal of it. However, checking the article history, I see it was introduced by this edit which was just referencing a debunking, i.e. no one was trying to introduce the story as fact. Furthermore, I just googled the subject and the first 10 or more hits were all debunkings. So I now agree with you, that nobody claims this happened anymore and thus it doesn't represent any real controversy and thus it doesn't need to be here. Sorry for the first reversion. Wasted Time R 02:34, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What's wrong with America?

Hello everybody. I am a young European just checking some articles about american politicians and I am confused to see what - for you - is considered to be important for wikipedia. An article called "Hillary Rodham Clinton controversies" - Jesus, don't you have real problems? Is this a weblog of frustrated republicans and democrats who have to fight each other on the word wide web cause they have no idea what to do in the real world? Delete all this rubbish and remember what wikipedia should be. Thank you. [00:40, 23 July 2006 87.193.39.22 ]

Wikipedia must reflect reality, and the reality of American politics is that there are a lot of charges, accusations, and controversies involving our politicians. Thus Wikipedia has to describe them, once they pass a certain level of official seriousness. However, I'm glad to hear that Europe doesn't have these problems. Wasted Time R 00:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

More to the point...is retaining her name after marraige really a controversy????? With the problems America has you'd think you'd have your priorities straight.

[edit] Unsupported rumors

Removed a section which itself said the rumors were unsupported by anything, re Vince Foster.Gobawoo 20:02, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I understand your motivation and argument, but experience has shown this doesn't work. See prior discussions in Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton archives, when this used to be part of the main article ... unless the Vince Foster rumors are covered here with the declaration that they are unsupported, they keep getting in, in worse and more inflammatory form, with even more accusations that this article is a "whitewash" of HRC's record. Wasted Time R 22:27, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where is "Stay Home Baking Cookies" and "not going to standy by my man like Tammy Wynette"?

Those were certainly major controversies, but I don't see them anywhere. Am I missing something?Msalt 07:18, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

They are in Cultural matters related to Hillary Rodham Clinton. I'll put at an xref at the top of this article, to that one, so that people can find it better. Wasted Time R 12:15, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
On the other hand, per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cultural matters related to Hillary Rodham Clinton that article isn't long for the world, so baking cookies and Tammy Wynette will soon be thrown down the memory hole. Wasted Time R 15:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
They're now here. Wasted Time R 03:16, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Well done. Thanks. Msalt 07:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging articles

I closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cultural matters related to Hillary Rodham Clinton as a partial merge here, so I expect this will garner some discussion on which parts are mergeable. I'll leave the article up for another week so material can be taken directly. After that I will redirect, so it would have to be taken from the edit history. ~ trialsanderrors 20:36, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I have done the merge and redirect. Wasted Time R 03:15, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Blame Canada.

I seem to remember Hillary blaming Canada for the huge power outage in NE USA and Canada. It ended up being a problem in Ohio, Hillary refused to apologize later when the CBC asked her about it. She also claimed that the Terrorist Attack of 9/11 had a Canadian connection (or had some Canadian connection) which was also later found to be false. I'm having some trouble finding sources, some help would be nice. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.195.109.165 (talk) 13:23, 21 January 2007 (UTC).

http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/14/bn.18.html [14:04, 21 January 2007 209.195.109.165]

You've got to do better than this. As Northeast Blackout of 2003 makes clear, initially there were a lot of speculations about what was causing it, most of which turned out to be wrong. HRC made clear in this interview that she was relaying "our best understanding right now" based on "preliminary information", which can obviously turn out to be incorrect. You need to dig up this alleged "refusal to apologize." Wasted Time R 14:47, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What's going on?

In my humble opinion, most of these "controversy" sections and/or articles pertaining to political figures represent the very worst aspects of Wikipedia. They are rarely NPOV, they attract the worst brand of trollish editors, and there is no real concensus on how to conduct them in any sort of a proper and professional manner. Which baseball team Clinton does or does not root for is considered a controversy? Really? And half of this stuff is just ridiculous. It's not just this article- most controversies which actually find their way into articles are ridiculous, and conversely most of the real controversial and offensive stuff is left out due to either lack of satisfactory ref's, or a concerted effort by alliances of like-minded editors. What's going on here, people? Is this what an encyclopedia is meant to accomplish?--Jackbirdsong 01:34, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I've added an introductory paragraph that explains that many different kinds of controversies are presented here, of varying levels of seriousness. Given that, yes the baseball fan issue attracted considerable media attention at the time, and is still mentioned in articles assessing her political chances. Moreoever, you need to be more specific about your objections to this particular article. Which entries do you think are not NPOV, and why? Which entries do you think do not belong? Which "real controversies" concerning HRC do you think are being left out by "like-minded editors"? Wasted Time R 14:01, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I suppose I was venting a bit above in regard to the - as I see it - lack of consistency in controversial material on this site. The question of whom any supposed "controversial" material was/is controversial to, exactly, seems significant and yet frustratingly difficult to assert. This is a broader concern that pertains to wiki in general, I suppose, so to stay specific to HRC, I would argue that unless something has been proven - i.e. there is a verifiable quote of HRC's to reference and not just speculative and subjective unverifiable accusation of others with possible ulterior motives - that it shouldn't be given any creedence insofar as this site is concerned. I think that simply listing a lot of the "controversies" which have been either debunked entirely or are simply dubious and questionable assertions - such as the black panther thing and the alleged anti-semitism, to name two examples - lends creedence to the claims simply by listing them in an encyclopedia. If she actually did or said something that is quoted by a reputed and verifiable source, that should be listed. Otherwise, its just hearasay, and that is anything but encyclopedic.--Jackbirdsong 01:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
As a long-time editor, I can tell you there is a lack of consistency everywhere in Wikipedia, not just in dealing with controversies involving politicians. The power of Wikipedia is that it has thousands of editors, but that same asset pretty much dooms any hope of consistency. As for your two examples, I think the Black Panther item deserves to stay, although the last edits on it have been clumsy and possibly pov. She was pursuing a legal career, and how she handled herself relative to a major case like this is relevant to her ethical development and proto-political judgement (e.g, did she get swayed by the emotions of the masses?). The anti-Semitic statements bit, on the other hand, is personal gossip put forth by three sources with axes to grind. I wouldn't be sorry to see that section removed. Wasted Time R 03:29, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
After reviewing the page, the "Reasons for being named Hillary" is by far the most shocking thing here. Talk about POV pushing! This is completely ridiculous, not to mention unencyclopedic, so I'm removing it. Anybody who cares to defend it can feel free to do so.--Jackbirdsong 02:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Imaginary discussions with Eleanor Rossevelt? This is a controversy to whom, exactly? It's just silly to try to make a controversy out of something so trivial- I'm taking it down unless somebody has a genuinely good reason it should remain.--Jackbirdsong 02:07, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
This one deserves to stay, it was quite the topic at the time, almost at the level of Nancy Reagan and her astrologer. HRC was the constant butt of late-night talk show jokes at her perceived oddness. Even now, Google shows about 30,000 hits on it [1] Obviously it's more frivilous than other items in this article, but there's nothing wrong with a little light-heartenedness now and then. Wasted Time R 04:10, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

This whole article reads like a hatchet job to me and does wikipedia no credit. If the 'contoversies' are notable enough, they should be on the Hilary Clinton page - if not they should be binned. 4kinnel 23:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, please discuss this with User:Nbauman, who per Talk:Political_views_of_Hillary_Rodham_Clinton#NPOV is convinced that Wikipedia is written by Hillary Clinton campaign aides. Wasted Time R 23:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Hahaha :-) 4kinnel 09:47, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
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