Ken Berwitz
MITCHELL: “Why on earth wouldshe go to a marine recruiter in 1975 and try to [join the Marines]? And she wasa lawyer, professor in Fayetteville, Arkansas, married to Bill Clinton orengaged to marry Bill Clinton? It doesn’t make sense”.
DWS: “With all due respect Andrea, why on Earth are we talking aboutthis?”
MITCHELL: “Because she brought it up in New Hampshire the other day. If she hadn\’tbrought it up it would not be an issue in this campaign.”
DWS: “Andrea, Andrea, whatthe story illustrated was that we have made a lot of progress in America.Secretary Clinton is absolutely right. Back then, you did have a much toughertime for women to be able to make it make it successfully through therecruitment process and move up in the military and we have made tremendousprogress since then. And same thing with the number of women that serve inCongress. We have a record number of women serving in Congress today but evenduring the time that I have been in office, we have come a long way. It isabsolutely important that we talk about during this presidential campaign theissues that are important to women, not just that we need to make more progresswhen it comes to opportunities for women but that we need to make sure we getequal pay for equal work, where there’s a very stark contrast between our threecandidates for president and the Republicans. All of whom oppose enforcingequal pay for equal work. When it comes to–
MITCHELL: “Congresswoman, withall due respect, I won\’t defer to anyone in terms of people who have donestories over the decades about the challenges of women in the military. So Idon\’t think that\’s the point. I think the point is just: Did this happen? Youhave a presidential candidate, the frontrunner in the Democratic Party sayingsomething happened which is quite strikingly dissonant to people who knew herback then. We\’re trying to find, the bottom line is the campaign, her campaignspokesman put out a statement saying, \’Her interest was sincere and it isinsulting but not surprising that Republicans would attack her for this, too.\’ So Nick Merrill is not saying she was doing it to make a point. He says herinterest in being recruited was sincere.”
DWS: “I just find it reallyunreasonable, Andrea and I know you have done stories and I certainly don\’tquestion your track record of making sure that those types of issues are raisedpublicly, but this is a personal story that Hillary Clinton has told, and it\’snot the first time she told it, it didn\’t come out of the blue. But using it asan illustration is an important way to jump off so that you can talk about thetopic of making sure that we continue to make progress for women in thiscountry in a variety of ways.
This is a personalstory of Hillary Clinton\’s and it is one thatI have heard over the last few days, is not where you can go back and aska recruiter whether that happened. She was using it as an illustration and it\’snot the first time she raised it and it\’s an appropriate illustration and apersonal experience.
Do we need every single experience in a person\’s life tobe written in stone and blood and verifiable?”
