Spitzer decision gets same-day nod from Clinton

Lost with the Wednesday announcement in Washington, D.C. from New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer that he was dumping his controversial plan to grant driver’s licenses to illegal aliens in his state, was New York Sen. Hillary Clinton’s statement (after Spitzer’s decision) that she, too, now is against granting the licenses, observes Grumpy Editor.

"I support Governor Spitzer's decision today to withdraw his proposal," said Clinton. "As president, I will not support driver's licenses for undocumented people and will press for comprehensive immigration reform that deals with all of the issues around illegal immigration including border security and fixing our broken system."

The day before Spitzer and Clinton wound up on the same page in shelving the driver's license idea, a poll showed 70 percent of New Yorkers opposed the plan.

After days of waffling on the subject, ever since an Oct. 30 presidential debate in Philadelphia with fellow Democrats in which she dodged an answer, her now firm view --- which came on the eve of another presidential debate --- should have been included in a lengthy Los Angeles Times story by Erika Hayasaki on Spitzer’s action.

That piece also appeared in other newspapers yesterday.

The issue surfaced in the October debate when Clinton fumbled a question on Spitzer’s licenses-for-illegals plan that he announced the prior month.

Both Republicans and Democrats used her swaying remarks to point out she was trying to stand on both sides of the hot issue.

The illegal immigration issue continued in last night's CNN televised debate from Las Vegas.

Opening question to Clinton asked about stumbling on "an important question involving illegal immigration" in the last debate and "your opponents are saying that's really part of a larger pattern with you, that you often avoid taking firm positions on controversial issues and one of your opponents on this stage calls this the politics of parsing.  How do you respond to this?"

A 57-second rambling response did not touch illegal immigration.  "Same old doubletalk," growled radio talk show host Michael Savage during the live airing of that portion.  "She didn't answer the question."