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Clinton archives fuel debate
19/03/2008 22:01 - (SA)
Washington - More than 11 000 pages of former first lady Hillary Clinton's White House schedules were released on Wednesday, but they shed little light on her boasted credentials to be commander-in-chief.
The New York senator has made experience the cornerstone of her campaign against Barack Obama to secure the Democratic nomination for November's presidential election.
But the 11 046 pages of schedules from 1993 to 2001, released by the National Archives after much prodding from the Obama team and freedom-of-information campaigners, left questions unanswered.
Many entries were redacted at the insistence of lawyers to former president Bill Clinton, on the grounds of protecting privacy or national security.
Those published seemed to show little evidence to back up the candidate's assertion that she played a hands-on role in foreign policy crises during the Clinton administration, such as Northern Ireland and Kosovo.
Clinton campaign spokesperson Jay Carson said: "They are a guide, and of course cannot reflect all of Senator Clinton's activities as first lady.
"The schedules do help illustrate Hillary Clinton's extensive and exhaustive work as a public servant and her role as an influential advocate at home and around the world on behalf of our country.
"Senator Obama and his campaign like to talk about transparency. We call on him to back up his words with action and release his schedules and other records from his time as an Illinois state senator."
The Obama campaign has said such records do not exist, and that in any case the Illinois senator is not making claims of experience beyond his documented time as a legislator in the state and US senates.
The publicly released schedules showed Clinton conducting the traditional social duties of a first lady, and undertaking foreign travel to fly the flag for the US.
Beyond that, they do not suggest an instrumental role in the Northern Ireland peace process in the run-up to the April 1998 Good Friday Agreement, or in forcing Macedonia's government to accept Kosovo refugees in May 1999.
"When your entire campaign is based upon a claim of experience, it is important that you have evidence to support that claim," Obama foreign policy adviser Greg Craig said last week.
"Hillary Clinton's argument that she has passed the commander-in-chief test is simply not supported by her record."
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