The sin of omission that Hillary is committing with the re-telling of the Indiana plant moving to China (while not mentioning that it was sold to China during her husbands tenure,) is starting to gather some light. The following story was linked by the DrudgeReport today.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/election2008/story/35337.html
It’s a story Hillary Clinton loves to tell, about how the Chinese government bought a good American company in Indiana, laid off all its workers and moved its critical defense technology work to China.
And it’s a story with a dramatic, political ending. Republican President George W. Bush could have stopped it, but didn’t.
If she were president, she says, she’d fight to protect those jobs. It’s just the kind of talk that’s helping her win support form working-class Democrats worried about jobs and paychecks, not to mention their country’s security.
What Clinton never tells in the oft-repeated tale is the role prominent Democrats played in selling the company and its technology to the Chinese. She never mentions that big-time Democratic contributor George Soros helped put together the deal to sell the company, or that the sale was approved by the administration of her husband.
I’ve been following this since the 24th when I finally got around doing some investigation of the claims she made in her ad. And even noted that Senator Bayh of Indiana is complicit in her sin of omission.
And what is their excuse for not being concerned with the purchase in 1995…
Because “there were assurances made that production would stay in the United States,”
In other words, they promised not to move production out of the US.
Update:
Instapundit linked to the same story also.
And the story made the Special Report w/ Brit Hume last night on Fox News.
The Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin, keep this wagon rollin’ Update:
More coverage,
Kevin Griffis, Indiana spokesman for U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, said Hillary Clinton’s comments about Magnequench were part of “Washington game-playing” in which “people are willing to say anything to win an election.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24315615/
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4757257&page=1
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/abc-digs-into-clinton-tra_b_99473.html
“In 1995, when this group bought Magnequench, there were assurances made that production would stay in the United States.” But as ABC recounts, the Congressional Research Service reports that the state-owned Chinese company that Clinton allowed to purchase Magnequench “promised to keep those Anderson, Ind., jobs in the U.S. only until 2005.”
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/trailhead/archive/2008/04/29/hoosier-daddy.aspx
Hillary’s chutzpah in flagging this issue is compounded by her criticism of the sale on national-security grounds (“They’re building up their military. They want to compete with us every step of the way. And we’re basically helping them.”) In the late 1990s, Republicans in Congress decided that U.S.-approved technology transfers to China under Clinton were creating a disastrous national-security breach, and conservatives tried to stir anxieties about imminent U.S. surrender to the Middle Kingdom to defeat presidential candidate Al Gore in 2000. Now, to win Indiana, Hillary Clinton seems to be saying that the wingers were right all along about that no-good husband of hers.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2008/05/01/abc-corrects-clintons-indiana-tale-blaming-bush-closed-factory
Interestingly, the hometown paper did carry this on the 17th of last month. But it hasn’t received national attention until now. Hmmm, wonder if the email to the Obama campaign had anything to do with it???
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