Archive 1

←

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

→

Archive 10

In the section "Speculation about possible 2008 presidential bid", there are a few sourced statements that nonetheless are not objective. Take a look at the excerpt I've pasted from the article. In the second sentence of the second paragraph, the sourced statement talks about what 'pundits' claim. Let us not forget that pundits are paid 'experts', and by no means should their views be referred to in an encyclopedic article. The polling statistics are another issue. Those are genuine polling results, factual data.

A pundit's opinion is not objective, regardless what people think. Therefore, since this article cannot be edited by users, then it ought to be edited by the authors/editors to explain that although pundits claim a certain position, that they are not a final authority, but are in fact human beings with allegiances to their respective think tanks.

"Speculation about possible 2008 presidential bid

Main article: Hillary Rodham Clinton 2008 presidential speculation

Clinton has expressed interest in the 2008 United States presidential race. No woman has ever been nominated for President by a major party. Clinton's 2008 campaign has been the subject of media speculation for years.

Although not announced as a candidate, it is widely expected that she will be running for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 2008. Nationwide polls place her well ahead of other potential Democratic presidential candidates and most pundits, as of November 2006, consider her the presumptive frontrunner for the nomination.[65][66][67][68] Speculation of a presidential bid and her senate profile helped place Clinton in the rankings for the world's most powerful people by Forbes magazine[69] and Time magazine's Time 100." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.43.89.134 (talk) 11:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC).

Nobody's claiming that a pundit's opinion is objective. Nevertheless, the collective views of pundits often (not always) have an objective, material effect upon the viability of political campaigns - if they think your campaign is cratering, for example, it makes it harder for you to raise money. Thus, they become relevant for description in an encyclopedia article.

In any case, this text is being overtaken by events - many pundits are now saying that HRC's chances of winning the nomination have significantly lessened, due to Obama-mania on one side, Edwards on the other side, and her continued difficulties with finding a stance on Iraq. Wasted Time R 13:34, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• What the heck is this? "When President Clinton required immediate heart surgery in October 2004, Clinton, the junior senator of New York, canceled her public schedule to be at his side at the Columbia University Medical Center of New York Presbyterian Hospital." What does this have to do with the Lewinsky scandal??!! Of what independent value is this fact for her biography? And what wife wouldn't do that? I swear someone from her PR team has been changing stuff around. I would change it myself right now, but I want people to see this! - Rollo44 19:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm a long-time editor of this article, and we've never found a really good way of dealing with the marital issue. It doesn't fit neatly into chronological sectioning and it's hard to label. Another editor felt strongly that the section should be named in terms of Lewinsky, I prefer the change that was just made to simply call it 'Marital relationship' and keep it as its own section. Moving it out of the chrono order is fine too. Wasted Time R 13:49, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I actually prefer the change that was made to Marital relationship. I'm still iffy on the fluffy statement I quoted above, but now that it's under the Marital relationship heading instead of Lewinsky scandal, it has added legitimacy. My question is where was she on her daughter's first day of school? That's kind of my point. It seems like fluff. ~ Rollo44 23:18, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Just a point about the statement above in this section that says "this article cannot be edited by users" - that is not correct. This article currently cannot be edited by anonymous IP addresses or newly created accounts, in an attempt to reduce the vandalism that plagues articles about controversial subjects such as this one. Anyone can edit here, you just have to create a user account which can be as unidentifiable as you like. Tvoz | talk 03:31, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I came here to refresh my memory of Hillary Clinton. Oddly, I didn't see any information on the White Water scandal, the Rose Lawfirm billing records controversy, her 1000% profit of "cattle futures" speculation, her relationship to Vincy Foster, etc. I don;t see any of these mentioned let alone details (e.g. there was a legal subpena for her billing records when she worked for the Rose lawfirm, she said she could not find them for years and then a White House staffer found them just lying on top of a table in the White House). Why not details, let alone a mention? These were big deals in the 1990s. They were covered extensivly in the media but no mention here.

Another poster said there was too much about controversies. I agree that this should be an objective biography that doesn't focus on scandal but the scandals should be at least breifly mentioned and then developed in its own page. George W Bush's page includes ALL of his scandals. Is Hillary immune for some reason from even handed treatment? (this comment was posted by IP address User:71.197.138.180 at 12:25, 20 January 2007) moved to bottom of page

Not true - read the article. In Table of Contents there is an entry for "Controversies" - that section directs you to an entire article about Hillary_Rodham_Clinton_controversies. This has not been ignored at all - to include it all in this main article would make it way too big. (Also please sign talkpage entries with ~~~~ and place new ones on the bottom of the page.) Tvoz | talk 18:20, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind the controversies section being set apart from her biography, but there should at least be a synopsis of the controversies she's been in on her main page. Perhaps one or two sentences which list her controversies. I am very concerned that either her supporters or her public relations team have smoothed her biography out and injected fluffy statements. Please see my comment above under "Objectivity?". - Rollo44 19:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we need to jump to any conclusions about pr staffs here - this is a huge article, and the editors felt a need to make it more manageable, that's all. I would think that a very short summary of controversies with a pointer to the main artcicle about the controversies would be ok, and in keeping with most articles that have forked off sections, but the problem may be in how to do that without adding a laundry list here. If you're so inclined, why don't you take a stab at it and see if it's doable. Tvoz | talk 19:44, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

If you go back into the discussion archives for this article, you'll see when there was a consensus that the article was too long, and User:LukeTH and I moved four sections out into separate articles (not just the Controversies). Dunno about Luke, but I can assure you that I am not an HRC PR person. Wasted Time R 04:31, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Swedish newspapers are reporting that Hillary Clinton has confirmed running for president 2008.Unsigned comment by User:83.233.146.197

They may not be tuned into the subtleties of American presidential campaign finance law - technically she has formed a "presidential exploratory committee" which means she has not exactly declared that she is running for President, only that she is seriously exploring the possibility of doing so. There are financial reasons (and perhaps other reasons) to follow this procedure, but it usually results in the person actually announcing candidacy a fairly short time later. For all intents and purposes we can probably assume that she is going to run, but the correct terminology right now is that she's formed an exploratory committee. Or at least that's the way I understand it. Tvoz | talk 03:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

You're probably right. The newspaper is just stating the obvious; "I'm in. And I'm in to win." shows her position quite clearly. http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/nyheter/story/0,2789,980443,00.html | At the very least the article should comment on this "presidential exploratory committee". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.233.146.197 (talk) 01:08, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

I've added the "I'm in...." statement to the section, to indicate that she has made clear that she is running. Wasted Time R 01:15, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

If she wins, it will divide the country. divider B

a uniter--Lerdthenerd 11:37, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

hmm, maybe we should have a straw poll. I'm kidding.Tvoz | talk 02:59, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I have a specific proposal to make the article a little more objective. Right now, the controversy section consists ONLY of a link to a different article. A whole section heading is dedicated toa single link. I propose that we add a few sentences or a paragraph along the following lines:

Like most controvertial politicians with long public careers, Hillary has been accused of involvment in various scandals. For a detailed list of controversies surrounding Hillary see the page "Hillary Rodham Clinton controversies."

Like most controvertial politicians with long public careers, Hillary has been accused of involvment in various scandals. Opponants have raised questions regarding her investment in cattle futures, her failure to produce billing records from her time as a lawyer at the Rose Lawfirm, and firing White House employees for political reasons, to name just a few. For a detailed list of controversies surrounding Hillary see the page "Hillary Rodham Clinton controversies."

[Comment posted by 21:14, 20 January 2007 71.197.138.180]

The second one is POV and the first doesn;t really add anything. Neither makes the article more objective. Someone forked off the awards without summarizing them and I don't see the need to summarize the controversies. Which ones do you include? How do you word it in a neutral manner - if you add a few here that gives them undue weight. I say leave it as it is, just a pointer. Lots of articles do exactly that. 06:10, 22 January 2007 (UTC) sorry, that was me - I left off a tilde Tvoz | talk 19:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

What I and another editor did do, was to briefly mention in the chrono bio mainline sections the most serious of the controversies — cattle futures, Whitewater/Rose Law, Foster, Travelgate, Filegate, i.e. the ones that warranted official investigations — with wlinks to the fuller treatments on the Controversies page. That way they don't go completely unmentioned, and it increases the likelihood that someone will realize the Controversies page is there. As for the intro, it does not say she was controversial, but it does mention that as First Lady she was the subject of several official enquiries (simple fact), was the first FL to testify before a grand jury (simple fact), but was never officially charged with anything (simple fact). To me, this gives reasonable balance. Wasted Time R 12:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

This picture does not illustrate the text of this article, and the posting, re-posting, resizing so that only the caption shows, with misleading edit summaries, is veering towards vandalism. Tvoz | talk 04:48, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. When I first erased the picture I said this in my edit summary: "nothing wrong with the picture but why is that picture in that section, it should be in the controversy article" to which I received a response of "readded pic; segregation ended in the 50s." Odd response and not something I would expect from a non-emotional neutral editor. Gdo01 04:52, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Editors do not have to be neutral. Articles do. And emotion plays no part here. You are all engaging in a whitewashing. This "article" reads as political campaign ad for Clinton. It does not give an impartial view of who she really is. --Jayzel 05:28, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. I think it has been already agreed that summary of criticism section is coming back and I hope it will be agreed soon that your POV image without any explanation will not be readded. Thank you for understanding.--Pethr 05:42, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Chung relates to the 1996 United States campaign finance controversy, which for the very large part never touched on Hillary herself, but rather Bill, Bill's campaign organizations, and some Clinton Administration figures. HRC controversies have to relate to HRC herself, not just the Clinton Administration in general. Thus, I've never written anything on it for the Controversies page. I could be wrong and am willing to change my view, but such a contribution would need a lot stronger sourcing than just a photo shoved in. Wasted Time R 13:55, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi, would the First Lady's office count as eligible? Justice Department prosecutors stated the evidence suggested both the President and First Lady's offices were aware of the foreign funds entering the campaign. As for use of this specific photo, no biggee for me if it is added or not added. I was mostly looking to get a conversation started about the almost total lack of anything even remotely critical being in the article. Regards, --Jayzel 14:52, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I must have missed that the first time around. It's a little borderline, but on balance I think it warrants inclusion. I've added it as Hillary_Rodham_Clinton_controversies#Role_in_1996_campaign_finance_controversy; take a look and see what you think. Wasted Time R 15:14, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll do a little digging today and get more information. If I remember correctly there was an issue regarding Johnny Chung delivering money to one of Hillary's assistants (Maggie something, I think) inside the White House itself (which is against the law) and her accepting it. --Jayzel 15:28, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and of course there is the matter where Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's partner testified in court that the First Lady was involved in the selling of Commerce Department Trade mission plane seats for campaign donations. --Jayzel 16:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, this sounds a bit like self-serving hearsay to me, but I've added it. Wasted Time R 18:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

99% of the "controversies" are hearsay and innuendo. BUt some people seem to want to add them here and call that "objectivity". Frankly, that's a laugh. And I thought we had problems editing the Obama page. Tvoz | talk 06:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Heresay, given an enormous amount of credibility when the Commerce Department got caught shredding government documents. Regards, --Jayzel 01:45, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I added the POV tag because in an article 63 kilobytes in size detailing the life of one of the most controversial and polarizing figures in American politics there is 0 reference to anything even remotely unflattering. This here article is nothing but sunshine and puppy dogs. Can we get a little reality added? --Jayzel 05:25, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

How about this 37 kb article: Hillary Rodham Clinton controversies? Gdo01 05:27, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Segregation of information you do not like, but is real and valid, does not make this article neutral. Wikipedia is not Hillary's personal campaign web site. You cannot deepsix and bury accurate information here. --Jayzel 05:30, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

As I understand, the controversy sections was "segregated" because the article was becoming overly long and inflated with criticism. People had to keep on compressing the criticism which eliminated precious details from the article. As you can see that has been done on the George W. Bush article which had this problem to the extreme. On the other hand, I agree with you somewhat. As stated on WP:SIZE: "In most cases, it is a violation of the neutral point of view to specifically break out a controversial section without leaving an adequate summary." Basically this article needs a small summary of the gist of the criticism and not just a link to an article. Gdo01 05:35, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

A good sized-summary would be a good start, but there still doesn't need to be a clumping of the info under the catch-all banner "Controversies". There needs to be more sprinkling of info throughout the entire article. For example: The Rose Law firm. It is briefly mentioned as a side note. This was an important time in her life and two of her closest long-time friends worked with her there yet there is no mention of them (Webster Hubble and Vince Foster). I'm not talking about adding conspiracies, I'm just talking about adding brief mentions of important factual events and important people in her life. The article comes across as timid and whitewashed when it dances around all these issues. It almost seems afraid to even approach anything of note. --Jayzel 05:52, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, feel free to add whatever you like. If it is well sourced and others find it relevant as well it will stay. Apart from criticism summary, is there any other reason for NPOV tag?--Pethr 05:57, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry for tag removal, wasn't willful. In fact I have no idea how it has happened.--Pethr 05:47, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

No prob! --Jayzel 05:52, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Part of the problem here is that for a long time, there's been a sentence in the intro that linked to the Controversies article. It was lost in the initial flurry of post-announcement editing; I've now restored it. Wasted Time R 13:44, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

As for the general issue of whether having the controversies in a separate article is NPOV or not, I don't know that there is a good answer for this. As a long-time editor here, I can say that the current structure has been in place for a fairly long stretch of time, and complaints have been roughly 50-50 that the HRC articles as a whole are a pro-HRC whitewash versus an anti-HRC attack. You can go back through the Talk archives here and in the Controversies article to see for yourself. I am sympathetic to the thought that it's easy to miss the Controversies article altogether, even with the above sentence restored, and am willing to work towards an improvement in this respect. Wasted Time R 14:35, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

As for being a polarizing figure, I agree that HRC is a prime example of one, and that it deserves to be mentioned early. I've added such language to the intro, along with 3 cites; I could give 30 easily ... Wasted Time R 15:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the NPOV tag. I am happy with the additions so far, though I will continue to look for ways for additional info to be added without adding to the overall size of the article. Regards, --Jayzel 16:24, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

The idea of forming a top-level 'Political career' section is misguided. She was engaged in politics when First Lady of the U.S., and to some extent when First Lady of Arkansas, so it's misleading to leave those sections out. Second, her presidential run will certainly be part of politics. So almost the entire article would go under that section, which makes no sense. What if it is changed to 'Senatorial career'? Will that satisfy the "too many flat sections" objection? I'll give it a go. Wasted Time R 13:40, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I absolutely agree and it should be all summarized in section introduction. I've done this mostly to structure the article a little bit since it has flat TOC which is really strange considering the lenght of this article. I agree that 08 run should be included in Political career (I've done that so in the first attempt which was reverted) but Presidential elections are often separate main section but it won't have enought text for several mounts so it's likely better to include it now in Political career as well and later differentiate senator and president candidate in main sections. What do you think?--Pethr 15:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

After my last change, the structure is:

    * 1 Early life and education
    * 2 Marriage and family, lawyer and First Lady of Arkansas
    * 3 First Lady of the United States
    * 4 Senatorial career
          o 4.1 The 2000 Senate race
          o 4.2 United States Senator
          o 4.3 The 2006 Senate race
    * 5 2008 presidential bid

This seems like a reasonable balanace to me. 'Political career' would really encompass most of the whole article - remember that she campaigned for Goldwater as a teenager! was on the Watergate committee - it's all 'politics' - I just don't see the benefit of that. There's nothing wrong with flat sections, either; their larger section header font size makes it easier to find them. Wasted Time R 15:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure, that's very good. I think we both agree that every article needs some structure and grouping of similar topics since it makes it much easier to locate information you are looking for. I'm aware that her political career started much earlier and this could be summarized in introduction of political career section since it's connected to her present political career anyway (or may be it's well summarized in article introduction). Other sections are named properly since f.e. she was more first lady than political figure until 2000... So this was what I meant but it's done very well now.--Pethr 16:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Article states Rodham-Clinton was President of College Republicans at Wellsley College, but the group was actually tbe Young Republicans. I do not have access to change that on main page, but its clearly an error [1].

Someone keeps altering the above link to Hilary Clinton on MSNBC. This is the discussion page, not the main page and item was submitted in a factual, respectful manner, please have some class.

Some editors say criticisms were taken out because the article was too long but notice there is a whole section on awards and honors! There's enough room for awards but not controversies? Sorry, that is NPOV on the face of it.

Further, are some of the more central scandals of her life more important to understanding her biography than her "Living Legacy Award" from the Women's International Center??? Why don't we put a picture of her trophy mantle and her girl scout's patches. [16:26, 21 January 2007 71.197.138.180]

Lol. Cute idea. Please sign your posts, though. Either type in 4 "tildas" or click the signature icon in the middle of the button row just above the field that you type your message into. Regards, --Jayzel 16:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your point about the awards sections, by the way. --Jayzel 16:42, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I concur with the moving out of the Awards and Honors to a separate subarticle. I've done some renaming and linking, however, to get it in consistent form with the other such subarticles. Wasted Time R 17:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

We need to fix the POV issues in this article or give it the POV tag it so richly deserves? [16:40, 21 January 2007 71.197.138.180]

The following sentence in the intro needs to be taken out: "Her prominent role has been often controversial, and generated debate on the changing status of women in America. She has often been referred to as one of the most polarizing figures in American politics.^{[1] [2] [3]} " It is NOT because I don't agree with the statement, but this is information that should instead be presented in the body of the article, not the introduction. The reader can easily make his own conclusion after reading through the Controversy sections. The intro should present just the plain facts, i.e. the major bills she initiated and the Senate committees she sits on. A single sentence like this in the intro cannot possibly give a sufficiently neutral impression or explain the debate. "Controversial" and "polarizing" means nothing unless you give the reader some background info first, but in that case we would need to write a really long intro to summarize the controversy, like the article on George W. Bush does. So let's just leave all the debates and controversy to the body text, where an in-depth discussion can achieve NPOV. KeL 17:52, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

The plain fact is she is a polarizing figure. She is far better known for her controversies than for any bill she signed off on. And besides, there is no controversy section in the article. It's all been segregated. All that's left is superficial info and cold stats. Regards, --Jayzel 18:29, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

The test for an intro is, if a Martian came to Earth and read just the intro, would they get a good idea of what the article subject is about. Without mentioning controversy and polarization, I think the HRC intro fails the test. Wasted Time R 18:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Of course Clinton is controversial, but you can't just say that in a single sentence in the intro, without any background for the Martian. Take a look at a the George W. Bush article. Do you think a Martian would understand why Bush is controversial if the intro didn't have all the paragraphs explaining the 2000 presidential election, the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina? Now imagine deleting all those paragraphs and replacing it with a single sentence "Bush is considered one of the most polarizing figures in American politics." What is the Martian supposed to think? That's exactly what this sentence here was doing to the intro. If you are prepared to write ten paragraphs in the intro to give proper context, then go ahead. Otherwise, it is extremely unfair to call someone controversial in a sentence, and just leave it at that without reason. That's the whole point of having facts in the intro, and discussion in the body. KeL 19:08, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

If a martian were able to read an intro and fully understand a topic why would we have the body? That is called the Cliff's Notes. I think an intro should set the table for the body to come. When a person is largely defined in the public by the controversy that surrounds them, then it is appropriate to mention that in their intro. That is like saying you can't call MLK a civil rights leader in the intro because you don't explain what civil rights he was for and the leadership that he displayed.Oconp88 16:36, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Anyone know her position on the war on drugs? I can't find it anywhere, even though I have been searching for it all day. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.246.244.184 (talk) 20:08, 21 January 2007 (UTC).

What will Bill Clinton's title be if she wins, First Lord? --Vladko 07:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Nope, FIRST MAN, according to NYPost (http://www.nypost.com/seven/01232007/news/nationalnews/first_man_nationalnews_maggie_haberman.htm). --Vladko 11:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

First Husband Bill Clinton Rodham

He would continue to be called President Clinton, just like George H.W. Bush is still called President Bush. In this case it would Mr. President and Madam President. I'm sure it's hard for some people to get their minds around a female President, but get used to it - if it doesn't happen this time, it will soon. And the sky won't fall. Tvoz | talk 06:10, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Back before this article became semi-protected, it was constantly vandalized by anons, and if you actually looked at those vandalisms, you could get a real sense of the Other at play. Wasted Time R 11:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I am sure that is true. As I've said, take a look at Obama's "move" history, and much more. Tvoz | talk 03:03, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Comparing this article to the George W. Bush article, this article seems much more favorable. This article reads much more like a puff peice than the Bush article does. Bush's article has much more criticism of Bush built into the article itself. One tiny example: the Bush article mentions the criticism that upon being told about the 9-11 terrorist attacks while reading to children in Flordia, Bush waited for seven minutes before he responded. This is a typical criticism by those on the left as popularized by Michael Moore. Yet, it is built directly into the article.

Who cares? It just suggest that either that article is NPOV against Bush or this article is NPOV in favor of Hillary. We need to have some sort of standards. What is fair for one should be fair for the other. We should probably build more MENTIONS (not necessarily details) of criticisms into the Hillary article. For exampple, the Rose Lawfirm is mention as an important period of her life but there is no hint or mention of her famous Rose Lawfirm billing records. Again these are small examples but the Hillary article is largely devoid of scandal, controversy, and criticism while the Bush article has it laced throughtout.--GFrege 18:39, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is fair to expect the same amount of criticism on every politician's article. Bush is an incumbant president that led his country into an unpopular war—of course he's going to have more criticisms than anyone else. That's just the way it is. I think there is quite a lot of coverage on all the scandals in this article. Not to mention all the details at the Hillary Rodham Clinton controversies article and a separate article on the Whitewater scandal. That's already much more criticism than the average senator, and I think any more would actually be POV against Clinton.

Besides, just wait till the election campaign gets underway and this article will fill up with scandals in no time. KeL 21:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Hillary is NOT an average senator. She is also JUST as controversial to conservatives as Bush is for liberals. But my point is not about the amount of Hilary criticism on wikipedia but about the amount of criticism in the MAIN article. Further, most criticism can be put on another page but tid bits and hints of criticism and controversy should be hinted at and thread through the entire article like it is with Bush and others. Hilary's wikipedia article may not read like a brochure written by her campaign but it is not too far off from that.

Anyway, we really should strive for NPOV and consistency.

BTW: It is interesting that the Bush article is harder on Bush than the Hilary article is on Hilary (the Keith Olberman article is also NPOV IMHO). There is a pattern here of leaning to the left. I don't know if this pattern holds when you look at a large sample of political articles. If it does, is the because more politically left people write on wikipedia? If so, is this related to the strong showing of liberals on blogs? Left wing blogs like the Daily Kos are much larger than the largest conservative blogs.--GFrege 23:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I've been editing the HRC article(s) for a long time, and how it "leans" really depends on who's actively working on it. At one point User:JonGwynne was the dominant editor and it was rather anti-HRC, saying that her victory margin in the 2000 senate election was disappointing small, including all the controversies inline in the article, and so forth. Then User:LukeTH became the dominant editor and the article was very pro-HRC, based on his views of what NPOV should mean and his willingness to make literally hundreds of edits to back it up. Then I became the dominant editor and it achieved what I hoped was a reasonable balance, although the after-effects of LukeTH's subarticles architecture left it a little too pro-HRC in my retrospective opinion. Now a bunch of new editing voices are being heard due to her announcement. It's not easy to please everybody, I'll tell you that much :-) Wasted Time R 00:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate the perspective you have as a long-time editor of HRC articles. It was interesting to hear of the evolution depending on the comings and going of various editors.--GFrege 02:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

"I don't think it is fair to expect the same amount of criticism on every politician's article. Bush is an incumbant president that led his country into an unpopular war—of course he's going to have more criticisms than anyone else. That's just the way it is." -- I think this is a very good point. Controversies regarding Hillary Clinton can only amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars, whereas controversies involving George W. Bush amount to hundreds of thousands of human lives. Forgive me if I don't see the equal magnitude. Bush is far, far more controversial than Hillary. By that I don't mean to say that conservatives don't hate Hillary more than liberals hate Bush, but Bush is the President of the United States and there have been more controversies with Bush in both number and magnitude: draft-dodging, intelligence failure, war of choice, torture, Plamegate, wiretapping. Hillary's controversies are pittance in comparison. Oh she said this or did that. Nevertheless they deserve to be reported in full here at Wikipedia. We don't spare anyone. :) I did notice some parts which appear to be puff pieces. Read my outrage here. You can see the paragraph here. ~ Rollo44 01:16, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Eh-hem! Hillary voted for the war and wiretapping. And her husband's CIA Director (George Tenet, was responsible for the failed intelligence on Iraq. Regards, --Jayzel 01:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Yea, that's called pandering which I despise, whereas George W. Bush was commander-in-chief and was responsible for the execution of everything. And I don't blame Hillary Clinton for the intelligence failure because her husband chose George Tenet. Anyway, I don't want to get into a protracted argument. Unless you want to take it outside? lol, jk ~ Rollo44 02:56, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll meet you outside, but only because we just finally had our FIRST accumulating snowfall of the winter here in New England tonight and I'm in the mood to make snowballs! :P Regards, --Jayzel 03:24, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

All you have done is repeated left-wing criticism of Bush and asserted it is more important. Some extreme right-wingers (NOT me) think she is responsible for the murder of Vince Foster and that she covered up her husband raping another woman (Juanita Broderick) to help achieve her ambitions. (I don't believe either of these accusations for a minute but neither do I believe "Bush lied, people died", etc.). Did she keep secret FBI files on enemies, as is alleged? If alleged domestic spying is bad for Bush it is bad for Clinton, too. Did she purposely hide Rose Law Firm billing records from court subpoena? (Again, I don't think she did). The point is that VERY series ACCUSATIONS have been made against both politicians. Lastly, you are right...Bush is president. Some say that if we had known more about him before the elections we might have been able to avoid some of mistakes of recent years. Its BEFORE elections that its important to have accurate, COMPLETE, and fair sources of information. When we chose our presidents, we should know BEFORE HAND what kind of person they are and what kind of policies they advance.--GFrege 02:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I just want to point out I don't claim the things I listed were indubitably true, just that those controversies are real and the issues involved are of a much greater magnitude (with the exception of draft-dodging of course). ~ Rollo44 03:07, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Another illustrative comparison is Category:George W. Bush administration controversies to Category:Clinton administration controversies. One is much bigger than the other. More ideological skewing in Wikipedia? No, simply that one administration held office during the Wikipedia era while the other was a decade earlier. Category:Reagan administration controversies doesn't even exist, and I can tell you there were a few. Wasted Time R 03:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Not a big deal, but the reason I think we should tie the first FL with an independent career to being the first FL subpoenaed to a grandjury should be obvious - yes of course it's the reason she's the first to be so subpoenaed. She had a career, and it was in that context - because of that, not in her role as First Lady - that she was called to the grand jury (I can't type that idiotically spelled word quickly!). And, you say it in the intro paragraph, so another way to go is to remove it from one or the other. Tvoz | talk 20:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Millions of men and women have independent careers without ever being called to go before a grand jury. She didn't get subpoenaed because she had an independent career, she got subpoenaed because she was suspected of having disappeared key records. You could do that as a conventional, non-career-oriented First Lady as well; indeed, when Hillary was investigated as part of Travelgate, that had nothing to do with her career as a lawyer. Wasted Time R 21:17, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

And there's nothing wrong with duplicating info between the intro and the main body; indeed that's bound to happen. Although I've never been convinced that the list of all the Senate committees she serves on belongs in the intro; only the Armed Services Committee position is of particular note. Wasted Time R 21:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

You are missing my point - of course millions of people have careers and aren't called to grand juries. The point is that none of the other First Ladies had careers, so it is hardly surprising that none of them were called to a grand jury. I don't think the fact that she was the first FL to be so called is important - I would of course include that she testified but I see no particular reason to say that she was the first FL. So what? And to be technically correct, if the first time she was called to testify was regarding the Rose Law firm's records, then indeed the "first time a First Lady" was called to testify had nothing to do with being a FL, and everything to do with having an independent career.

Pat Nixon could have been subpoenaed for dumping Watergate tapes, but she didn't and wasn't; Nancy Reagan could have been subpoenaed for trying to disappear Iran/Contra records, but she didn't and wasn't. The opportunity exists for First Ladies to do illegal things, or be suspected of doing illegal things, regardless of whether they had careers prior to their husband being elected. You're trying to put some friendly spin on an event that HRC fans would like to forget, but that's not our job here. Wasted Time R 18:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

But as for repeated information -I actually agree with the recent edit that removed that whole graf from the intro and think we should keep it this way because it was needlessly redundant, and perhaps was giving it undue weight which we wouldn't want to do. About the committees, I don't think we should be making value judgments about which one is more important than which other one. Tvoz | talk 04:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that the part about being first First Lady called to the grand jury is not that notable. I think it deserves to be mentioned briefly in the body text, but it really is not historically significant enough for the intro. However, the part about the investigations should remain. As for removing the entire paragraph about the First Lady years from the intro, I don't think that should happen unless the Senator paragraph is removed as well to achieve balance. And I agree that the Armed Services Committee position is more notable than the others, but it needs to be worded such that it doesn't mislead readers to think it's her only position in the Senate. KeL 05:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry - going to look at intro, etc. again - I had read it too quickly before, and hadn't seen that the graf was just inserted below which doesn't make sense. Tvoz | talk 05:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I surveyed about 30 of the articles on other current Senators, and committee assignments are almost never mentioned in the article intros unless the person chairs the committee, which HRC doesn't for any of hers. So on that ground one could argue for removing all of the committee mentions. On the other hand, this survey revealed that the Senator intros were utterly inconsistent with each other - some are one sentence, some are the full article, some talk about the term or class or junior/senior and some don't, the state and party is described in different formats, some have other biographical highlights and some don't, for those running for Prez some are specific about the stage of presidential candidacy and some aren't ... etc. In other words, this looks like a bunch of articles put together by assorted amateur writers, and not the coherent presentation of professional-quality writing. Of course, that's the nature of Wikipedia. But it leads me to decide not to be concerned over what's in this article's intro. Wasted Time R 18:29, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Why is this at "Hillary Rodham Clinton"? Even her own campaign website HillaryClinton.com calls her "Hillary Clinton". "Hillary Clinton" gets over four times as many Google hits as "Hillary Rodham Clinton". Timrollpickering 07:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Because whenever it's come up before people who haven't read the naming conventions have argued against it. I'm just going to move it now — it's a perfectly clear application of the common name rule, and the only argument to the contrary is nonsense like "Wikipedia says call people by what they call themselves" (which came up in the last discussion). Proteus (Talk) 09:33, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I have no complaint against the move, but you need to do the cleanup associated with the move. There are numerous places inside the article which need to be shorted from "Hillary Rodham Clinton" to "Hillary Clinton" and there are several child articles which need to be renamed to match the parent article. Please, don't do only part of the job. Thanks. --StuffOfInterest 00:18, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Those places inside the article need to stay as they are. Her official name is Hillary Rodham Clinton (look at her signature in the infobox) and when she became First Lady she made a special point of saying this was her name (the Controversies article has more details and a cite). Moreover, the child articles don't need to be changed, because they aren't the subject of Google searches, which is the rationale for the change of the main article. There's no need for a lot of busy-work here; Proteus has got the article name change that he's been hankering for for so long, let it sit at that. Wasted Time R 00:24, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

You know, you are very right. I just looked at her official Senate page, and it lists her as "Hillary Rodham Clinton". Based on that I'd say the article should be changed back. The press usually refers to her as just "Hillary Clinton" these days, but I believe the official Senate page trumps press short hand any day. The move on an article like this really should have gone through more discussion and if it hasn't changed back in the next couple of days I'll probably do the move myself or at least put it on WP:RM. --StuffOfInterest 00:27, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I was just writing essentially the same thing as Stuff - her campaign site calls her "Hillary" more than anything - and her official Senate website is Hillary Rodham Clinton. I would also like to hear what the page editors have to say and would have preferred our reaching consensus before moving the page, especially since there indeed are quite a few "daughter" pages. "Hillary Clinton" redirected here - why was it a problem and why a rush? Tvoz | talk 00:37, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

There's an even wider ripple effect to a change than you might think, as besides the daughter articles there is also a Wikicommons article, a Wikiquote article, a Category ... Wasted Time R 00:42, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

There was a discussion of this last year, you can read it at Talk:Hillary_Rodham_Clinton/Archive_4#Article_title. Opinion was divided, and so nothing was done. Then Proteus took it upon himself to do it now, without further discussion. As the archive shows, I was in favor of leaving the article title at Hillary Rodham Clinton, so a move back to that is fine with me. Wasted Time R 00:40, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've changed it back along with the redirects. If Proteus wants to try that again he needs to hold a proper discussion and gain consensus. My primary reasoning on changing back is her official Senate page, which uses "Hillary Rodham Clinton" in both print and in her signature. What the press chooses to call her isn't relevant. She uses HRC, so this seems the most appropriate naming. --StuffOfInterest 02:19, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I agree with the reinstatement. Tvoz | talk 02:24, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Will somebody please move this article back to Hillary Rodham Clinton? There is no consensus on the move, in fact I'd say contrary. It should be moved back per her official Senate pages, lack of consensus and her own usage of the full name. Thank you.--Pethr 19:29, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I would perform the move myself, but I am not too familiar with the process and don't want to mess it up. But it's clear that in this case, "Hillary Rodham Clinton" is more appropriate than "Hillary Clinton". And the consensus in news media is also "Hillary Rodham Clinton". Correctness should take precedence over Google hits. KeL 03:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The redirect was unfortunately vandalized so it's not so easy to move this article back. I requested that move hopefully it will be resolved rather quickly.--Pethr 05:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I've asked admin User:StuffOfInterest to change it back again - the name should be Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hang on, I'm sure Stuff will be along soon to fix it again. Tvoz | talk 06:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Someone please put a request on Requested Moves explaining exactly what happened. I'm hesitant to do the same move twice as it my start to have the appearance of wheel warring. Still, as there is nothing in recent discussion supporting the move there should be little controversy in moving it back. I'll check back again in a couple of hours and move it if someone else hasn't. Also, it looks like the mover this time didn't bother cleaning up the double redirects. I'll warn him on that action regardless. Thanks for contacting me on it. --StuffOfInterest 11:28, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I see someone had put a post on WP:RM before I posted here. Thanks. I've put some more info on the request to see if another admin wants to take care of it this time. Still watching. --StuffOfInterest 12:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

This really really needs to be run through a requested moves to settle the location on this. "Hillary Clinton" is certainly how best she's known (especially internationally) and is the name the campaign is using - the campaign site is "Paid for by Hillary Clinton for President Exploratory Committee" (my emphasis) so abitarily picking on the use on the Senate site or declaring that the name used for her campaign URL is opposition party POV seems very strange to me. Timrollpickering 12:20, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The real issue is which name is "correct", not which name is used more often. What people call her at the dinner table is irrelevent. Ninety percent of people like to use the name "killer whale" for an orca. They also like to call Pluto a planet. But the fact is the Rodham name has never been dropped either officially or in practice. She and the news media has used "Hillary Rodham Clinton" since her days as First Lady. KeL 15:07, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Please go on and write Senator Clinton e-mail[2] describing how stupid she is that she can't use her correct name and she is messing up even her own signature. I'm sure she will be so embarrassed that she will start to use her "correct" name immadiately. You really want to shorten her name despite this?--Pethr 16:30, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you've misread what I wrote here. I was arguing the exact opposite: that "Hillary Rodham Clinton" is the correct name, and it doesn't matter what the common people like to call her. KeL 16:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't replying to you;) Article is back, thanks everyone.--Pethr 17:31, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

There does seem to be a worrying trend on Wikipedia towards making up what you imagine policy is on the spot rather than actually going and finding out what it is. Where you all got this absurd idea that her "official" or "correct" name is relevant I have no idea. Go and read Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names): you might be surprised (the name is a clue). The fact that comments like The real issue is which name is "correct", not which name is used more often. are being made is quite worrying, to be honest, considering how central the common names policy is to the naming conventions (especially since my original reply said Because whenever it's come up before people who haven't read the naming conventions have argued against it., which is exactly what you're all doing again.) Proteus (Talk) 22:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know how you judge more common usage, but she uses and even signs her full name and media use her full name as well. As others tried to demonstrate in previous discussions on this subject she made it clear that she wants to use and be known by her full name. I tried to search CNN and it seems they respect this. I don't think the long name is problem because there is of course redirect and google links to this article on the third place only after her official sites no matter what you search for. Is there any particular reason why this article should be moved?--Pethr 00:03, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The link Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) which you provided also mentions that the common name rule is not absolute. Please read the section under Do not overdo it. Maiden names are an especially sensitive issue that require special consideration to avoid offense or confusion. In this case it is very clear that she has never dropped the Rodham name either officially or in practice. And the mainstream media also take the cautious approach by referring to her as "Hillary Rodham Clinton". Another example: Teresa Heinz has never adopted the Kerry name, and it does not matter how many millions of Americans called her Teresa Kerry back in 2004. Dropping the maiden name can be both offensive and misleading. The policy clearly states that in such cases use widely known alternatives, which in this case is "Hillary Rodham Clinton". Honestly, it's worrying when people blindly assert the naming policy without regard to special circumstances. If you want to debate whether this is an exceptional case that's fine, but don't accuse people of not reading the naming conventions just because you happen to disagree. KeL 00:05, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

As another example of where "common usage" does not hold sway, the article on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is properly located there, even though that name is out-googled by Jacqueline Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, and most of all Jackie O. (And all of these forms bring up the Wikipedia article as the first hit, showing that there is no loss of "findability" by using the correct form.) Wasted Time R 00:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I propose we request move-protection for this article which would prevent random location changes (i.e., prevent people changing the name of the article at will) - this has been done on other pages, and it means that anyone wanting to change the name would have to come here to discuss it, and hopefully we would reach consensus on it. Vandals who want to rename the page (as was done in the last round) would be thwarted and well-meaning editors who want to see it changed would read the consensus opinion and raise their objections here. The semi-protection of the page against IP edits would stay exactly as it is - this is only about the name/location of the page. Seems to me the consensus here is that the proper name of the article is Hillary Rodham Clinton, with of course Hilary Clinton redirecting here for anyone who uses that shorter version. I see no downside to this - everyone will be able to read the article, but this is her "correct" name, as has been discussed above. And we avoid all of the problems with sub-pages and other redirects, etc. Any thoughts on this? Tvoz | talk 22:10, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

With two changes (without established consensus) and reverts in the last couple of weeks, I have no objection to move protection. What bothered me even more with the latest move was that the instigator did none of the cleanup work which goes along with a move. As I've said elsewhere, a post on WP:RFPP explaining the two move and reverts with a pointer to the discussion here should be enough. This page is high-profile enough that this level of protection is warranted. If someone thinks it needs moved in the future, once consensus is established they can post on WP:RM to make the move happen. --StuffOfInterest 22:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I also support move protection. Wasted Time R 22:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

As the admin who moved the page back this last time, I made sure to edit the redirect at Hillary Clinton afterwards. This has the effect that no-one except an administrator can move the article over it. It doesn't stop a vandal moving "Hillary Rodham Clinton" to any other (unoccupied) title, but it means that a move back to "Hillary Clinton" would need to go through the proper channels. I'm not saying that it couldn't or shouldn't be move protected, merely that it may not be necessary. --Stemonitis 23:30, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I noticed that, pretty clever. I think it's sufficient. Thank you.--Pethr 23:45, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

That sounds good to me too for now - we did have one attempt at vandalizing the name during the last round of name chnge, but perhaps it was coincidental, so sure, let's see what happens now. I have no great desire to write up a request! Tvoz | talk 01:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Just want to bring this back up briefly because, although the article is long, I am in general opposed to sections (particularly sections with the potential for POV issues) to consist solely of a wikilink. I personally think that a brief sentence (which may "add nothing" substantive) such as "Clinton, like many politicians, has been involved in various scandals throughout her career; see this" is better than nothing at all. -Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 17:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, you're already editorializing here ... who says "many politicians" are involved in scandals throughout their careers? What is your source for that? Can you point to a study that compares HRC's "scandal count" against those of the average politician? It sounds like an attempt at pro-HRC spin, to downplay the significance of any controversies before the reader has even seen them. Better just to link to the subarticle, without trying to summarize it. Wasted Time R 17:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, it sounded to me like an attempt to be neutral by adding that. DMZ didn't compare her "scandal count" to anyone's, DMZ merely said that many politicians are involved in scandals. I wish that were not the case, but it is. Tvoz | talk 20:08, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Of the 100 current Senators, how many have been involved in "scandals"? I believe the number is lower than you think, because there is a natural perceptual bias here — you notice it when you hear politician X is in a scandal, but you never hear about politician Y's scandal-free career. Wasted Time R 04:36, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe DMZ said "politicians" not "senators". Unfortunately, I think it is a true statement that many politicians have been involved in scandals. Tvoz | talk 08:21, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

• Well unfortunately WastedTime chose to interpret my comment as some kind of incredibly sophisticated and subtle POV pushing, accompanied by the curious assertion that it's POV to claim that many politicians are involved in scandals. However, all of that is debatable. My point is simply that these two sections should not consist merely of wikilinks, but should have some kind of contextualizing summary/introduction. -Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 21:56, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't have a problem with what you're suggesting - as I said, to me it is an attempt to be neutral, rather than implying that Hillary Clinton is somehow unusual in having controversies/scandals/etc attached to her name, as I think the article does. Tvoz | talk 22:21, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I added something similar to what I suggested. I am more concerned that there be something to introduce the links than with keeping my chosen wording.-Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 22:48, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I tweaked both, but I think they are fine, and an improvement to the article. Tvoz | talk 23:28, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, I guess I'm guilty of overanalyzing this. I don't have any real objections to the language the two of you have added. In practice, it's the sort of text that readers' eyes will quickly skip through on their way to clicking the link, so it doesn't really matter a lot what's there. Wasted Time R 23:31, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The statement that order of precedence is unimportant is not consistent with the established practice on Wikipedia, and it is therefore highly POV to remove this entry only from individuals who happen to be controversial; in fact I consider it POV to remove this template if any individuals with equivalent or lower precedence. Tvoz is assuming that an apparent ambiguity in cited sources is justification for omitting names that are entitled to be on this list. That again is not consistent with reality, i.e. if Senator Clinton showed up at a diplomatic function with an invitation, it seems deeply unlikely that staff reaction would be "oh, State hasn't said where you should be on the list, so we can't seat you." Tvoz is citing their own comments on the Order of Precedence page as justification for action taken on this page; this is not WP:V. If the cited sources have omissions or flaws, Wikipedia is nevertheless obliged to defer to cited sources, until such time as those sources improve themselves or better sources become available. If the anti-precedence faction wants to remove this template from all pages, start at the bottom and work one's way up (and see how consensus reacts), don't just cherry-pick the people you don't like (as that is certainly controversial and POV). Avt tor 00:56, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Please don't make assumptions - you can check for yourself to see from where I removed this box last week. In fact I did not remove it only from controversial figures at all. I removed it when I came across it, from names like Kyl, Corker, Casey, Bond, Klobuchar, Wyden, Webb, Lieberman, and several others - and also from Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Obama - the only 2 possibly "controversial" figures I see in the group, and done first because they are two pages that I contribute to regularly. INdeed, quite a few of the full list of names are from the bottom of the list. I admit I haven't been systematic, because I haven't had the time, nor am I on a campaign - but it is totally not true that I've only gone to controversial people. This has nothing to do with controversy anyway, and I am not even aware of whether or not there is an "anti-precedence faction", nor am I working with anyone else on this. This was my own feeling, that the order of precedence is certainly deserving of an article, and I completely support its inclusion as an article, but that is different from this template that has been thrown onto pages all over the encyclopedia without explanation. I believe that order of precedence, a ceremonial protocol matter, can very easily be confused by readers with order of succession to the presidency, which is something that I could see used as a template. This is a matter of who sits where at a dinner, and I don't think it is important enough to be included on individual senators' pages as if it were something important, especially so on pages that are pressed for space.

Further, specifically for Hillary Rodham Clinton, the template that was added is not verified as being correct, due to her unique position as Senator and former First Lady. That is what I was referring to in my edit summary here - I was talking about earlier comments on the precedence page discussion about former First Ladies. Not just my comments, but other people's comments. And I wasn't referring to the comment I added after my edit summary here - I added that latest comment afterward because I realized that discussion of this should take place over there, where there are people interested in these matters.

So, to be clear - I think that most of this discussion belongs on the order of precedence page, which is why I brought it there - only things specific to HRC should be here. As for cited sources - take a look at those: last time I looked, the current FL and VP's wife were not specified, but they were assumed to be in the order the page has them listed, so the fact that it doesn't address former FLs who are not widows is inconclusive. No problem for the order of precedence article, which of course will be amended as more information is discovered. But here, in this article, it makes even less sense to include a template box that may well be wrong. If you wish to continue to discuss this, that's fine with me - but it should be over on the precedence talk page.

And please check your facts before making accusations. Thank you. Tvoz | talk 02:12, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't care much about this box either way, but it unfortunately has a bright yellow top border, which makes it look visually like it's the most important succession box in the HRC article, when in fact it's the least important. Wasted Time R 02:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

exactly - and I don;t see what we need it for. Tvoz | talk 02:48, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

What's the deal? [00:50, 16 February 2007 140.247.154.71]

Have looked into this further, and these boxes seem not to be part of any project, but an ad hoc adaptation of the legitimate succession boxes - i.e. who was senator before Sen. X, who succeeded Sen. X. The order of how they are seated at an official dinner, or who gets introduced before whom does not rise to the level of importance of a succession box, and I'm removing them. I've added a note to the Wiki congressional project page as well, where another editor also had entered a note about this. Tvoz | talk 07:43, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Kind of a long-winded justification. I have no opinion about order of precedence. I do have an opinion about cherry-picking contentious entries to add or delete items. (I have no idea what the editor who kept inserting "Diane" was on about.) I see a lot of effort on a lot of pages to change obscure points to inject a POV spin on certain articles. As long as simlar pages are edited in a consistent way, that's fine. Avt tor 16:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Change "Patti Solis-Doyle, who is expected to become the first Latina to manage a presidential campaign" to Hispanic female. [03:44, 8 February 2007 66.176.238.72]

What is your source? Per [3], she is the first Hispanic presidential campaign manager of any gender. Wasted Time R 12:17, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

A paralax view: Rabble Rouser Rant

[4] - a site showing a signature with 'Diane'

These sites also use it as a full name:

[5]

[6]

[7]

These sites use it w/out Rodham - Just Hillary Diane Clinton

[www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1650140/posts]

[8]

[9]

It seems only logical to list it as her full name. I am changing it now that I have provided proof. If anyone has a problem - comment, please. [00:55, 12 February 2007 User:K157 ]

The signature goes towards our position, not yours - a book buyer asked her to sign that way, because otherwise she never does! The three HDC references are all worthless - a political rant site and two primary schools. That leaves three references for HDRC - the first doesn't seem to use it, while the second two do. A google test shows all of 549 uses of HDRC, while there are 121,000 of HRC. So in sum, she doesn't use HDRC and practically no one else does either. We will change it back to how it belongs. Wasted Time R 05:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

K157 - "Proof" is not the same thing as consensus; your "proof" is weak and you don't have consensus for the change. Wasted is correct, and I support having the name as we have it: Hillary Rodham Clinton, with the correct listing of her birth name as Hillary Diane Rodham. So please do not change it back again, unless you gain consensus here first. Tvoz | talk 06:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Wasted Time R and Tvoz have said it well. I agree with them. Please stop putting this in. You should attain consensus before making a contentious edit. Consensus is not, "here is my evidence and I'm making the change now." --StuffOfInterest 11:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at this excerpt from Talk: Laura Bush

NoSeptember,

I consulted our expert and First Lady biographer, Carl Anthony. This is his response:

Well, she was born with the first name Laura and the middle name Lane, and her last name was Welch. She married Bush. She signs her name Laura Bush, but her full name is Laura Lane Welch Bush, You don't have to declare what "official" name you are taking when you marry. I mean Hillary was born with the middle name Diane. Her maiden name was Rodham. She married Clinton. At first she just went by the professional name Hillary Rodham. Then she used the name Hillary Clinton. Then, in her first weeks as First Lady she began calling herself Hillary Rodham Clinton which she still uses, but she is listed with her full name Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton. Jackie Kennedy never signed her name, "Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis," she went by Jackie Onassis and then by Jackie Kennedy Onassis.

All of these women assumed, took on the last name of their husband; some signed their names with their maiden names, some didn't, and some went back and forth. So the names were "legally adopted" in that sense, but at different times they used their middle and/or maiden names.

It seems there isn’t any “official, legal” name but rather the name most commonly used by the person at the time. Really our SS numbers rather than our names legally identify us. Hope this helps.

Martha A. Regula, Library Director National First Ladies' Library, Education and Research Center 205 Market Ave. S. Canton, Ohio 44702 330-452-0876 regulam@firstladieslibrary.org

Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is her full name and should be used as such; just because she does not style herself in the fashion regurally, it should be listed if EVERY OTHER FIRST LADY has their birth-given middle name listed as part of their full name (which they all do). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by K157 (talk • contribs).

A quick skim of senator and other biography pages shows that the infobox title is usually the common name and rarely contains middle names. For people who have changed their names, the name change is normally shown in the first paragraph. The current wording appears to be consistent with similar pages. Avt tor 16:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

This debate seems to have been going on forever. Why are some people so insistent that "Diane" be included in her name? Most everyone knows her as Hillary Rodham Clinton, why are others trying to add a name she never uses - Diane - to her name? I really don't understand the importance of this... or why the debate rages on? Are we not voting on a "person" - or has it come down to voting on a "name"? Tom M. 15:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

If her current full name is "Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton" then it should be listed as her full name. My full name is "Timothy Charles Roll-Pickering" - just because everything I write is listed as just "Tim Roll-Pickering" doesn't make the former any less my full name.

Practically every biography on Wikipedia opens with the subject's full name, middle names et al, regardless of what their given form is. Why such a fuss juyst because it's Hillary Clinton? Timrollpickering 17:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree the full name should be used in the first mention. "Diane" is still part of her full name. I propose changing it like this:

Original: Hillary Rodham Clinton (born Hillary Diane Rodham on October 26, 1947) is the junior United States Senator from New York and a member of the Democratic Party.

Change to: Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (born October 26, 1947) is the junior United States Senator from New York and a member of the Democratic Party.

But don't change the name anywhere else; not even the infobox. Afterwards, use "Hillary Rodham Clinton" or simply "Clinton" (not "Hillary Clinton") on every subsequent mention. KeL 14:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I can live with what User:Kelw proposes. Wasted Time R 15:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. I'll change it. [01:10, 17 February 2007 K157]

The citation for Hillary's support of Goldwater can be found on page 266 of 'A Glorious Disaster' by J. William Middendorf.Hillary was a high school senior at the time and a 'Goldwater Girl', Middendorf writes. [01:51, 15 February 2007 65.94.87.69]

I've added this. Wasted Time R 15:31, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

What's the deal with Hillary's page? This is ridiculous...how can we get this fixed? [00:50, 16 February 2007 140.247.154.71]

It's already semi-protected. If she gets the nomination, experience indicates that the whole article will be locked down during the final stretches of the general election. Wasted Time R 15:31, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Should we add that voters in Rhode Island wrote her in in 2004? - User:K157 [14:44, 17 February 2007]

This was already discussed here, see Talk:Hillary_Rodham_Clinton/Archive_4#Trivia. Why on earth is this smattering of write-in votes significant? Even in a small state, 52 votes in a primary isn't much. Wasted Time R 15:39, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I could not find any information in the article about the polls that would show support for the candidates fighting for the Democratic nomination. Who is the front runner and what are their chances. I think a poll or two should be incorporated into the article. Ecostaz 21:42, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

There are several of these in the Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign, 2008 article, which is a "sub-article" of this one. That's probably where they belong, as ten years from now they won't have a whole lot of individual meaning. Wasted Time R 21:59, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I'm not big on the scene here, so I'll keep it short and probably never return.

Could her platform please be listed? I consider a platform to be a list of issues and her stance on them. Issues are, well, anything really. Broad things like the US budget and Foreign policy. Down to specifics like gay unions and adult stem cell harvesting.

I guess I'm lazy, but this article is too long to try and determine this stuff. I want the political views section expanded. I get that she's libral, but what does that mean for gay arabs who pirate mp3s. 64.238.49.65 22:16, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Political views of Hillary Rodham Clinton. There's a link in the article to this. Gdo01 22:17, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Quite. As they say in the computer biz, RTFM. Wasted Time R 22:20, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Some believe that, because Hillary is married to a former president who served 2 terms, the Constitution prevents HRC from becoming president. [22:56, 24 February 2007 65.96.76.23]

This blog entry: h t t p : //financehistoryandpolicy at blogspot dot com/2007/01/why-hillary-rodham-clinton-cannot-be.html [chopped to placate WP spam filter] seems to elucidate this theory. However, I believe it has so little following that it does not merit inclusion in the HRC articles. Wasted Time R 23:55, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

And if that isn't amusing enough, there's this article: http://newsblaze.com/story/20060217071841nnnn.nb/newsblaze/OPINIONS/Opinions.html, which claims she cannot become President because the Constitution limits that particular office to men. Maybe we need to start the subarticle Crackpot theories about Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Presidency. Wasted Time R 04:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Just to further bash this flawed interpretation, the first article of the Constitution says the Representatives in the House of Representatives should be men but I don't see anyone trying to stand up for that line of the Constitution. Just noticed that there's a similar provision in the Senator requirements yet I don't see any wide spread support for removing all the women out of the Senate. This is ridiculous and kind of sad that this is the Congress with the most women in history and then there's blogs like those. Expect this article and talk page to get swamped with crackpot theories once 2008 comes around. Gdo01 06:57, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Fellas, please tell me you didn't seriously entertain the possibility of including this garbage.Tvoz | talk 07:35, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course not, but there's going to be a lot more people trying to put this stuff in as the months go by. Gdo01 07:45, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

True, of course, and we'll have to watch for it. (How low will they go? Oh, take a look at Barack Obama move history and you'll see how low.) Actually I was more worried about Wasted than you anyway... Tvoz | talk 15:10, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Me!? Whadda' I do? My subarticle suggestion above was a j-o-k-e ... Wasted Time R 23:34, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Just saw this- Wasted, I know it was a joke - that's why I put in the subtle three dots at the end... Tvoz | talk 03:11, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

More commonly used, even her campaign website is hillaryclinton.com and I think it's safe to say her campaign won't say Hillary Rodham-Clinton for president. Yonatan (contribs/talk) 09:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

We've had a full discussion and poll on this; see #Requested move above. It's not happening. And the name has no hyphens. Wasted Time R 12:30, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the Hyphen was meant to be part of an arrow pointing to the second name. --67.68.154.79 21:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

No, Wasted is referring to Yonatanh's note directly above his. Tvoz | talk 23:04, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

As part of his or her otherwise worthy copyediting efforts, User:Kelw made a major change to the article's organization, pulling HRC's personal life events from 1971 through 1980 out of chronological sequence and into one paragraph at the end of the Early life section. I strongly disagree with doing this! Doing so loses the historical flow of both Hillary's and Bill's life, as these personal events were intertwined with Hillary's professional career and Bill's developing political career. Per Living History, a key moment in Hillary's life was when she decided to that she could live in Arkansas, away from the Northeastern (Yale and D.C.) world that she was already becoming successful in. Joining Rose Law Firm was part of her showing herself that she could still make a difference in Arkansas. And so on. The bottom line is that for someone with as much going on in their lives as HRC, a chronological treatment is by far the best way to make sense of it.

So, I have restored the previous approach. I have condensed the paragraphing somewhat from what existed before, which I think Kelw may have also objected to. Wasted Time R 12:43, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I would agree the chronological approach is usually the best way. The reason I made the change is because there are no more than two or three short sentences in the section on her marriage and family, whereas there is much more material on her work as a lawyer and First Lady. If they were more balanced, then yes a strictly chronological arrangement would work. But right now, those short sentences on marriage and family are taking the focus out of the section by briefly jumping in and out of her professional life. To me, it just makes more sense to briefly mention these related sentences together, rather than have them disrupt a section that is mostly about something else. This is a pretty common practice in biographical articles, for example the article on Bill Clinton briefly mentions the marriage and birth of Chelsea before moving on with his political career.

In real life, everyone's personal life is intertwined with their working life. And when writing a memoir, I agree it would be best to arrange everything in chronological order, so that the reader "experiences" the author's life as the author did. But here we are just writing a biographical article, so the "experience" factor is less important. I think it's fine to branch off occasionally as long as we keep the article mostly in chronological order. Taking just three sentences out of order is, I think, a reasonable sacrifise to keep the scattered information on personal life together and make the article more readable. — Kelw (talk) 14:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

The title of the section in question is "Marriage and family, lawyer and First Lady of Arkansas", so it's clear to the reader that they can find marriage and children described in this section, even if it's only a small portion of the material there. Regarding the 'common biographical article practice', this is a convention adopted in the old days for male politicians, where wife and children were often considered a "side matter". I think it does a disservice to female political figures, who in our culture have often had to conduct a much more delicate balancing act between the personal, the professional, and the public. And in particular it doesn't serve an account of HRC well. One of the frequent criticisms of her is that she used her marriage to Bill to gain power for herself, power that she otherwise wouldn't have been able to obtain. Readers can't evaluate the legitimacy of such claims unless they see how her life unfolded, and that requires an intertwined account as I am advocating. Wasted Time R 15:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I don't really see how my version makes it harder for the reader to evaluate the "legitimacy" of her career, or how your arrangement makes it any easier. To me, all it did was make the section harder to read by causing the focus to jump back and forth. For example, the sentence on the birth of her daughter, while important, has very little to do with her work at the Rose Law firm. It doesn't make any difference by taking it out and putting it together with the marriage information. In my opinion, those sentences on family and marriage are so short that they will appear as "side matters" regardless of how you choose to arrange them in the section. The difference is that in your arrangement, the sentences are getting in the way of information on her career.

I know what you mean when you say you want the reader to be able to evauate her legitimacy. Again, it's just that I don't see how your version makes that any easier, or my version any harder. As long as the information is conveyed in a logical, understandable manner, the reader should be able to evaluate the person as they do with any biographical article. Lastly, I just want to add that "Marriage and family, lawyer and First Lady of Arkansas" is quite a long and awkward section title, which is another minor reason for the change. — Kelw (talk) 16:55, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

How long did Hillary stay at home after her daughter was born? Did her career path at Rose Law suffer because of it - was she placed on the Mommy track? Or did she stay at home until her daughter went to college, like Nancy Pelosi did? These are all things that can only be explicated if the account is chronological. You are right that it is a shortcoming of the article that it doesn't currently answer these questions directly ... I will try to add that ... but breaking the chrono treatment would make addressing these questions near hopeless. As for the section title being long and awkward, length is no sin (some eras of literature featured very long chapter titles) and the "awkwardness" is appropriate because she was indeed doing four things at once (wife, mother, law partner, statewide public figure)! Wasted Time R 17:18, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

However, my above comments obviously beggar the question, what about the current Marital relationship section, which is also out of chronological sequence? Many editors have found this section unsatisfactory, for a variety of reasons. It used to be earlier in the article, in semi-chrono place, but even within the section it jumps around in time.

I propose to junk the section, and distribute one part of it to a discussion of the 1992 campaign (which was a crucible for HRC and deserves more attention; it will also include "two for the price of one"/"co-presidents" from the First Lady of the US section as well as brief links to the Controversies article on Tammy Wynette/baking cookies); one part of it to the First Lady of the US section, discussing Monicagate and impeachment; and the final part to the Senator section, mentioning the heart surgery bit.

However I won't make these changes until I get feedback here on whether it is advisable. Wasted Time R 13:54, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea, although we should be careful not to put excessive weight on the marriage issue in the First Lady and Senator sections. — Kelw (talk) 15:12, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I have now done this. To avoid the 'excessive weight', I moved some of the material to a new entry in the Controversies article. Wasted Time R 14:50, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Apparently she was not valedictorian of her class at Wellesley: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17388372/page/3/ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.167.173.84 (talk) 10:57, 2 March 2007 (UTC).

An article on msnbc.com on Ms. Clinton's College Senior Thesis points out taht she was not valedictorian of her class at Wellesley. The article mentions that this inaccuracy is quoted on wikipedia and is incorrect. Nothing like getting called out.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17388372/

Oconp88 16:49, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

For the record, the incorrect claim was removed with this edit stamped [13:58, 2 March 2007 SDLovell].

For a fairly controversial public figure, this whole article is reading like a giddy fan's mawkish tribute. Whitewater and Cattle Futures are both brushed aside while honors are up-played. And, until today, there was apparently errant information on HRC being valedictorian of her college class - a piece of blatanlty false propoganda that led Newsweek to mock the credibility of Wikipedia.

This article is biased for its inclusions as much as its absenses, and reads like it is being manipulated by HRC's supporters, friends, staffers or other folks of the like. I'm going to try to go in and start cleaning some of this up, but I wanted to post here first so I don't end up in the middle of some politically-charged revert war. The bottom line is this needs to be an encylcopedia article, not a fundraising letter, and at the moment it looks for more like the latter than the former. Editor Emeritus 14:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. There are many mentions of the controversies, including Whitewater and the cattle futures. On the whole I find the balance of achievements and criticisms to be satisfactory. The weakness of the article are bad prose and undue weight on specific quotations and events. For example, the quote on her supposed support for income redistribution was actually a very minor matter that is mostly covered on conservative blogs, but is given a full coverage in the article. Also, more credible sources are needed. But overall, I don't think the article is too biased, at least not to the extent you are saying. — Kelw (talk) 15:34, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Input noted and appreciated. What are your thoughts (and those of others) on the absense of a Tammy Wynette reference? This was a major issue at the time and centered around HRC - seems odd to exclude it. I'm also struck that a word search for "impeach" in the article only turns up a lone Nixon reference - to discuss HRC and ignore impeachment would be to discuss Melinda Gates and ignore Microsoft. Editor Emeritus 16:45, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead and give the article what you think it needs. I only disagree with the point about the article having serious objectivity issues. — Kelw (talk) 17:07, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the Clinton impeachment, HRC didn't have much to do with that, so that's why it doesn't get much coverage here. Wasted Time R 17:50, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Editor Emeritus, have you read Hillary Rodham Clinton controversies, which is linked to from multiple places in this article? Wasted Time R 17:47, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

As part of distributing out the Marriage section (see above), I think I have addressed some of the objections here. In particular, the First Lady of the United States section now includes mentions of, and links to, the Tammy Wynette remarks and the Clinton impeachment. Wasted Time R 14:53, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

"At the time [the 1996 re-election campaign], the remark led opponents to refer derisively to the Clintons as 'co-presidents' or sometimes 'Billary'"

This is incorrect. "Billary" has no recorded use before the celeb couble portmanteau became popular, beginning with "Benifer", well into the George W.'s presidency. The source cited is dated from 2005. So please remove the "Billary" reference as something that opponents used to deride the Clintons during Bill's presidency. [16:42, 2 March 2007 24.199.113.105]

The term was used at least as far back as 2000:

• 2000 Usage of Billary

LessPaul 17:41, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The OP is wrong; the "Billary" term was used at the time, which the cite confirms. Just because the cite was written in 2005 is irrelevant. Wasted Time R 17:44, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

New information is opening up on her Senior Thesis at Wellesley. See Reading Hillary Rodham's hidden thesis, MSNBC, accessed March 3, 2007.  MortonDevonshire  Yo  · 18:28, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I've got it covered. A brief mention in Hillary_Rodham_Clinton#Early_life_and_education and a fuller treatment in Hillary_Rodham_Clinton_controversies#Wellesley_thesis_and_suppression, both mostly sourced from this valuable MSNBC article. Glad this thesis has finally come to light! Wasted Time R 18:38, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Right now the links to the subarticles, namely Political views of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton controversies, Hillary Rodham Clinton awards and honors and List of books about Hillary Rodham Clinton, seem to occupy their own sections with very brief (if any) summaries that serve little purpose. How about putting them all under a standard See also section? The most important information from these pages should already be integrated with the text anyway, and doing this would also help achieve the chronological treatment of Clinton's biography. Any thoughts? — Kelw (talk) 22:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

What you describe is how the Mariah Carey article (which involved more editing conflict than HRC's!) was organized for a while - the links to her discography, awards, etc. subarticles were all under a 'See also' section and no where else. But lots of people couldn't find them that way either, and now the article seems to have reverted back to the usual way. Seems no matter what you do, some people only read the main article and nothing else, and then loudly complain that topic <whatever> is only barely covered. Wasted Time R 23:00, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

This article says that her father Hugh Ellsworth Rodham was English, while the Hugh Ellsworth Rodham article says he was Welsh. Which is it? --Saforrest 14:39, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Page 4 of Living History says he came from a "line of black-haired Welsh coal miners" on his mother's side. She's got a lengthy writeup of her various grandparents and their backgrounds, which seemed to include various different national heritages; you'd have to chart all that down if you want her breakdown. Wasted Time R 20:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)