From last night’s Special Report with Brit Hume:
—On Hillary’s Outburst—
HUME: From a debate on Thursday night in which she talked about how proud she was to be next to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton by Saturday was saying he should be ashamed of himself for circulating a flier about–I guess about NAFTA–and then you heard a little of that.
So what’s going on here, and will it go anywhere for her–Mort?
MORT KONDRACKE: Well, she is either bipolar, or she has decided that nothing else has worked, so she’s going to just let it rip. I would say it’s probably the latter.
FRED BARNES: [H]e does have her on NAFTA. There is no way for her to wiggle out.
Look, in the beginning, and I think this is true, she opposed it inside the Clinton administration. She didn’t want the president to sign it. But, what, is she going to trash her husband now and say, “Boy, it was a terrible decision, I told him not to do that”?
But she can’t do that because she has been going around for the last few years saying it worked. On balance, it was good for the U.S. and good for New York State.
—On McCain’s Finances—
HUME: McCain indicated an intention to accept this federal money. He hadn’t gotten any yet, and he is close to the limit already on what the spending limits would be if he were to get that money. And indeed, if he proceeded on this course, he would be unable to spend much of anything between now and when the general election begins under the law in the fall.
He has now said, “No, no, we’re not going to take the money. We haven’t gotten any; we’re not going to take it.” He is being accused now of violating the law with his name on it by Howard Dean. What about it—Fred?
FRED BARNES: He’s not going to take any taxpayer money, and he’s going to raise money and spend his own regardless of this case.
Howard Dean is, of course, a total hypocrite. He was the one who said he would take the taxpayer financing, and then changed his mind later, so he doesn’t have any ethical standing in this thing at all.
The truth is McCain could have gotten–would be in a position where he would be stuck if he had done one of either of two things–if he had actually taken some of the taxpayer money, which he hadn’t, mainly because . . . it hadn’t come. Well, the whole federal election commission is tied up. They don’t have enough commissioners, and that’s another story.