During the December 1 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, commentator and author Christopher Hitchens -- a frequent critic of the Clintons -- again claimed that in 2000, Hillary Clinton "got" her husband "to change his plan to visit India and to build in a visit to Pakistan on the way in return for" thousands of dollars she received from a fundraiser held by a Pakistani-American PAC. Hitchens cited no source for his assertion, and reporting at the time said there was "no evidence" to support such a claim. Hitchens made similar claims on the March 29, 2000, edition of the show, as well as in the 2000 edition of his book No One Left to Lie To: The Values of the Worst Family and in a May 1, 2000, column in The Nation. Hitchens made these accusations despite offering no support and despite reporting undermining his claim.

During the December 1 edition of Hardball, after making the accusation, Hitchens added: "Everyone in Pakistan knows she's open for business. This is not a left-right question. It's a matter of integrity." In response, Salon.com senior editor-in-chief Joan Walsh said to Hitchens: "I believe you cherry-picked the worst possible interpretation, as well as facts that aren't necessarily facts, and come up with this analysis."

In a May 1, 2000, column in The Nation titled "The Two Faces of Hillary" (available by subscription), which he quoted at length in the 2000 edition of No One Left to Lie To, Hitchens provided no evidence for the accusation that Hillary Clinton "got" Bill Clinton to go to Pakistan. Hitchens wrote:

General [Pervez] Musharraf's regime has now hired, at a retainer of $22,500 per month, the DC law firm of Patton Boggs, for which Lanny Davis, one of the First Family's chief apologists, toils. Perhaps for reasons having to do with the separation of powers, Patton Boggs also collects $10,000 monthly from Pak-Pac, the Pakistani lobby in America, for Davis's services in its behalf. Suddenly no more Dem jokes about ignorance of Pakistan.

Last December, after Clinton announced that Pakistan would not be on his itinerary when he visited the subcontinent, his former White House "special counsel" arranged a fundraiser in Washington at which lawyers from Patton Boggs made contributions to the First Lady's Senate campaign that now total $25,500. So, not very indirectly, Pakistani military money was washed into her coffers from the very start. Then, in February, another Pak-Pac event, in New York, was brought forward so as to occur before the arrangements for the President's passage to India had been finalized. Having been told that the First Lady did not grace any event for less than $50,000 upfront, the Pakistanis came up with the dough and were handsomely rewarded for their trouble by the presence of Lanny Davis and by a statement from Mrs. Clinton that she hoped her spouse would stop off in Pakistan after all. And a few days later, he announced that, after much cogitation, he would favor General Musharraf with a drop-by.

How does this look to you? One way of deciding it is to try the cover stories for size. "I wish I could say I had the influence and had applied the right pressure for the President to visit Pakistan, but I didn't, so I can't." That's Lanny Davis. Is this what he tells the Pakistanis in return for his large stipend? "If anybody thinks they can influence the President by making a contribution to me, they are dead wrong." That's Hillary Clinton. Is that what she said at the Pak-Pac fundraiser?

One thing that strikes the eye immediately is how cheap this is. And inexpensive, too. The Pakistani nuclear junta must be rubbing its eyes: For such a relatively small outlay of effort it can get the First Family to perform public political somersaults. [emphasis in original]

During his March 29, 2000, appearance on Hardball, Hitchens accused Bill Clinton of "selling U.S. policy on Pakistan to help his wife" and claimed it was a "scandal." Host Chris Matthews responded by asserting that Hillary "grabbed a ton of money from Pakistani-Americans, a huge ethnic group with lots of money and she grabbed all their money and then she said she was not going to encourage her husband to go to Pakistan but all of a sudden he went to Pakistan." Hitchens responded: "No, she said at the dinner I hope he goes to Pakistan."

Contrary to Hitchens' overt accusation on December 1 that Hillary Clinton "got" Bill Clinton to go to Pakistan and his suggested accusations to that effect earlier, The New York Times reported in a March 14, 2000, article that "no evidence has emerged that Hillary Rodham Clinton, who told people at the dinner that she hoped her husband would visit Pakistan, had influenced his decision last week to do so." The Times went on to quote White House spokesperson Mike Hammer as saying, "The first lady's views were not part of the decision-making process." Additionally, the Times noted that "Mr. Clinton has previously indicated his own desire to go to Pakistan."

Additionally, contradicting Hitchens' claim that Davis "organized" the February 2000 New York fundraiser, the Times reported that Davis said "he played no role in arranging the fund-raiser."

As Media Matters for America has documented, in the context of reports that Obama intended to nominate Clinton, Hitchens repeatedly attacked Clinton's foreign policy credentials during appearances on MSNBC:

• On the November 18 edition of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Hitchens suggested that Clinton was not "respected in the Pentagon," despite ample evidence that Clinton "has gained a lot of respect among military leadership" and has "built relationships" with military leaders such as Gen. David H. Petraeus and Adm. William J. Fallon.
• During the November 17 edition of Hardball, as well as the November 18 edition of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Hitchens revived his accusation, which he has yet to source, that Hillary Clinton blocked any action by the Clinton administration in war-torn Bosnia in 1993 because she didn't want it to interfere with passage of her health-care plan.

From the December 1 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: OK, Joan, let me try to ask you to climb through that rubble. That's very complicated. What do you think --

HITCHENS: Rubble?

MATTHEWS: -- of this appointment? It's complicated, Christopher, because you make the point that this administration's policy hasn't been to the right of what Barack Obama is promising for his administration, which most people would disagree with your view and accept mine -- that it is to the left of what we've had for eight years now.

HITCHENS: Listen, is it left or right for Hillary Clinton to get her husband, after a huge Pakistani fundraiser -- I'm speaking about something very important to us right now. A few years ago, a huge Pakistani fundraiser, in New York, organized for her by Lanny Davis, she got Clinton to change his plan to visit India and to build in a visit to Pakistan on the way in return for a huge campaign donation. Everyone in Pakistan knows she's open for business. This is not a left-right question. It's a matter of integrity.

WALSH: I think this is ridiculous. I think --

HITCHENS: Do we want such a person as secretary of state?

WALSH: Christopher, your views on the Clintons --

MATTHEWS: Joan, your turn.

WALSH: Christopher, your views on the Clintons' integrity are well-known. I consider them eccentric. I believe that you cherry-picked --

HITCHENS: Getting --

WALSH: I'm not -- I'm not going to say that they are perfect, but I believe you cherry-picked the worst possible interpretation, as well as facts that aren't necessarily facts, and come up with this analysis.

HITCHENS: Name one. Name one.

WALSH: I think this is a terrific --

HITCHENS: Name one.

WALSH: I think this is a terrific -- I'm stepping -- I'm going to step around the rubble today, Christopher.

HITCHENS: One, one.

From the March 29, 2000, edition of Hardball (retrieved from the Nexis news database):

MATTHEWS: Well, tell me about India and Pakistan and what your thoughts are.

HITCHENS: What about selling U.S. policy on Pakistan to help his wife? It's a scandal. I can't believe [Rudy] Giuliani is being so quiet about it. If he saw --

MATTHEWS: So she went on television -- I know she grabbed a ton of money from Pakistani-Americans, a huge ethnic group with lots of money and she grabbed all their money and then she said she was not going to encourage her husband to go to Pakistan but all of a sudden he went to Pakistan.

HITCHENS: No, she said at the dinner I hope he goes to Pakistan.

MATTHEWS: I hope he goes. But the fact is that it was never an issue.

HITCHENS: Of course, she's lied a lot about it, as she lies about everything. But you notice that Lanny Davis, her former hack and flack, has been hired by the Pakistani military dictatorship. We were all laughing at Bush for being too nice about that general and forgetting his name, remember?

MATTHEWS: Right.

HITCHENS: Now, Lanny Davis, the hack and flack for the Clintons, is hired for 22 grand a month to represent this dictatorship in Washington and New York. We find he arranged another big dinner in D.C. for fundraising and for pressure on the Clintons. It's extraordinary.

MATTHEWS: You mean that guy that was on this show all the time defending Clinton --

HITCHENS: The whole compromise with dictatorship and with a nuclear power to try and help his wretched wife and her wretched campaign in New York.

MATTHEWS: Well, let me ask you --

HITCHENS: Where is the outrage, Christopher?

MATTHEWS: Well, it seems to be present in San Francisco where you are tonight. Let me ask you about this Lanny Davis role. I'm fascinated. Twenty-two thousand dollars a month to represent the dictatorship that overthrew the democratic government in Pakistan and he isn't part of the fundraising campaign, apparently. What's the connection between Hillary -- the fundraising in New York to get her elected to the Senate and the efforts by the Pakistani government to pay for goodwill here in Washington through the good offices of Lanny Davis?

HITCHENS: Yeah, well Mr. Davis says, when he's asked about the dinner he put on in Washington, well, I don't have this kind of influence to change Mr. President Clinton's itinerary. Well, I wonder if that's what he tells the Pakistanis when they hand him the check. Don't give this to me under the impression I can do anything, guys.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about --

HITCHENS: It's enough to make a cat laugh, isn't it? But I mean it wouldn't be the first time they'd sold off a bit of foreign policy for some domestic moolah.

Marc Ambinder:
Jeb Bush Ponders Florida Senate Run  —  Two sources close to Jeb Bush, including one who has spoken to the former Florida governor within the past few hours, say he is seriously considering a run for Senate now that incumbent Republican Mel Martinez has retired.

During the December 2 edition of NBC's Today, when asked about the effect of President Bush's approval ratings on Barack Obama's election as president, Fox News contributor Karl Rove claimed that the "call for change gave Barack Obama the presidency of the United States with 2.1 percent more than Al Gore got." In fact, in 2000, Gore received 48.38 percent of the popular vote, and according to unofficial election results posted on National Public Radio's website, Obama has received 52.7 percent of the popular vote, which is a difference of 4.32 percentage points.

Rove has previously made similar claims to downplay the extent of Obama's victory. During the November 5 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, when asked how responsible Bush was for Obama's victory, Rove responded, "[L]et me put this in a little bit of a frame for you. ... [Obama] got two and a half points better than Al Gore did." Rove added: "So, if this was all about George W. Bush, and -- and you looked at George W. Bush's standing in the polls, and this was all a reaction to him, you'd expect this thing to be a blowout." Rove similarly claimed in his November 6 Wall Street Journal column that Obama did "2.5 points better than Al Gore did in 2000. These small changes on the margin meant all the difference between winning and losing."

From the December 2 edition of NBC's Today:

MATT LAUER (co-host): President Bush said in an interview recently that he is sure some of the votes for Barack Obama recently were a repudiation of Republicans, and he said, "I'm sure some people voted for Barack Obama because of me." He's leaving office with -- with dismal approval ratings. What went wrong? This was, this -- you were the architect in many ways --

ROVE: Yeah --

LAUER: -- of this administration. What went wrong?

ROVE: Well, first of all, let's take what went right. What went right is that we were struck on Novemb -- on September 11, and for seven years he has kept our country safe. He has liberated 25 million people in Afghanistan, and 25 million people in Iraq --

LAUER: So you'd think they'd carry him out on their -- on their shoulders.

ROVE: No, well, look -- look, that's not -- that's not the way the system works. At the end of eight years, Republicans or Democrats have had -- when they've had the White House, people tire of it. And he's asked the country to do a lot of tough things. And he's asked -- he's asked -- we've gone through big and bold changes, and the country doesn't like that. And we have some economic difficulties. I would remind you of economic difficulties.

LAUER: But the call for change became -- came long before the meltdown.

ROVE: Well, and I would rememb-- remind you this: The call for change gave Barack Obama the presidency of the United States with 2.1 percent more than Al Gore got in 19 -- in 2000.

From Rove's November 6 Wall Street Journal column:

But we do know President-elect Obama ran better among frequent churchgoers (perhaps getting 10 points more than John Kerry did), independents (perhaps five points more than Kerry and eight points more than Al Gore), Hispanics and white men. He even made special appeals to gun owners and sent his wife to cultivate military families. This allowed him to carry previously red states like Florida, New Mexico and Iowa.

This combination helped Senator Obama run four points better nationally than John Kerry did in 2004 and 2.5 points better than Al Gore did in 2000. These small changes on the margin meant all the difference between winning and losing.

From the November 5 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

ALAN COLMES (co-host): How responsible is George W. Bush and what his administration has left us for what happened?

ROVE: Well, look, if you want to look at it that way, let -- and let me put this in a little bit of a frame for you.

Barack Obama got 1.5 percent more of the vote than did George W. Bush. He got four points better than John Kerry. He got two and a half points better than Al Gore did.

So, if this was all about George W. Bush, and -- and you looked at George W. Bush's standing in the polls, and this was all a reaction to him, you'd expect this thing to be a blowout, not something that was essentially a mild improvement over what John Kerry got. I mean look at that. That's four points better.

COLMES: [inaudible] But you add in the House, the Senate, and the number of gains for Democrats there -- does that not also speak to --

ROVE: Well, look, the Republicans have a challenge, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action

Princess of Persia plays dress-up as Jade from Beyond Good & Evil originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Ramu Yalamanchi, CEO of Hi5 isn't worried about the recession. "We started in a recession so we know what to do. Plus, recessions make available some great resources."

Hi5, headquartered in San Francisco, is much better known outside of the region, and the US. It is larger than MySpace or Facebook, in 30 countries especially Spanish-speaking such as Mexico, and in developing countries--and it is growing faster than both.

"When we started in 2003, we saw that the US market was getting crowded so we looked at emerging markets, that's how we got popular outside of the US," says Mr Yalamanchi.

Hi5 has great momentum and it is looking for new markets. It thinks that virtual worlds is a potentially large opportunity. Earlier this year Hi5 acquired Pixverse, a small company that makes virtual products for virtual worlds. Gaia Online, for example, makes a lot of money from its virtual world economy.

"Our users like to express themselves creatively and we think that virtual worlds will allow them to do more of that. Also, mobile is very important for us, because in a lot of countries people have mobile phones but they don't have PCs."

Hi5 hopes that virtual worlds and mobile will help it continue growing at a very fast pace. In the first six months of this year comScore reported Hi5 visitors increased 79 per cent to 56.4 million per month from 31.4 million per month.

And although Hi5 is big elsewhere, it is not giving up on the US, it hopes to capitalize on its large Spanish speaking user base. "We think we can do very well among Hispanic users in the US," says Mr Yalamanchi.

Hi5 has also cultivated the application developer community by being a big supporter of the OpenSocial standard. This helps developers easily port their applications across different social network platforms.

Hi5 is a privately held company and has about $20m in cash. Mr Yalamanchi notes that economic downturns make resources less expensive such as office space, and also make it easier to find great software engineers, which will help Hi5 in this next phase of its expansion.

Foremski's Take:

Monetization of social networks continues to be a challenge for all social networks because the environment is different to search advertising. It is especially challenging for Hi5 because of its diverse geographic spread. Advertisers continue buy space on a regional basis rather than on a global scale and that won't change for a good while.

Also, ads on social networks are considered very low quality and they don't have the same conversion rates as on other sites. However, that means that there is an excellent arbitrage opportunity for those advertising agencies that can craft the right type of commercial message. Hi5 is working with various agencies to create interactive ads that engage users. And Hi5 has done well with partners in various local markets.

Hi5 is well positioned for growth. We are still in the early stages of social networks, and this is even truer in developing countries where many people are getting online for the first time, and that's where Hi5 has brand leadership. On the Internet being number 1 means being far ahead of number two, or three, and that's a great advantage for Hi5. Especially in markets that are growing far faster than the US.

Recessions might slow spending, but they don't slow Moore's Law, which means the Internet becomes more accessible every day to millions more people overseas, and that's where Hi5 is strong.