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MSNBC may have hosted the debate in Philadelphia for the Democratic Presidential candidates on Tuesday night but it produced enough sparks for all three networks to assign a correspondent to cover its aftermath. ABC's David Wright got so excited that he mixed his sporting metaphors, characterizing Barack Obama and John Edwards as "a formidable tag team" in their assault on frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton, but then calling her "their punching bag…their jabs were so relentless." NBC's Andrea Mitchell summed up their point of attack as characterizing Rodham Clinton as "evasive, not trustworthy" and "ducking questions." CBS' Jim Axelrod concluded that her "sure-footed campaign stumbled for the first time."
All three reporters focused on her answer to a question about New York State's plan to issue a driver's license to all immigrants, even those without a legal visa for residency. Her answer appeared both to endorse her governor's plan and to disavow it. NBC's Mitchell called it "her muddled position" and CBS' Axelrod saw her conveying an image of "Slick Hillary, who will play both sides of any issue." ABC's Wright read her campaign's post-debate statement that "she supports governors--like Gov Eliot Spitzer--who feel they need such a measure." Concluded Wright: "Apparently she is for it, sort of…Any clearer?"
Both ABC's Wright and NBC's Mitchell pointed to hillaryhub.com where the Rodham Clinton campaign tried to make a joke of all the criticism she received by setting a montage of attacks to music: the Politics of Pile-on, as Mitchell put it. CBS' Jeff Greenfield picked up on a second problem for Rodham Clinton in the debate, her excuse for not publishing White House papers on her time as First Lady until "well after this election." In the debate she promised "certainly we shall move as quickly as our circumstances in the processes of the National Archives permit." Greenfield envisaged what those papers might contain: her "factually false" role in the White House travel office; her brothers' receipt of "hundreds of thousands of dollars" when a pair of felons were pardoned; "how did she raise $100,000 trading cattle futures?" Noted Greenfield: "This stuff has not come up in the campaign but you can almost hear the opponents beginning to chomp at the bit."
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