On the Supreme Court, one debate ago, Richardson said his favorite Justice was Byron White. That was before it was pointed out to him that White wrote the dissenting opinion in Roe v. Wade. Since then, his new faves are Justices Earl Warren and Ruth Ginsburg.And then there were the baseball lies.
Richardson stubbornly refused to end a fight with the mother of a fallen Marine. Russert produced an Associated Press story disputing an anecdote Richardson tells on the campaign trail. It's about a conversation he had with Lance Corporal Aaron Austin's mother, who thanks the governor for getting federal death benefits for survivors increased, brandishing the check she got.
Not only has Richardson fumbled the name and age of Austin in the retelling, the mother says there was no such exchange.
``I don't know a person rich or poor that would be told that her only living child has been killed, and you're going to strike up a money conversation?'' she said. ``Bill Richardson needs to stop pushing this lie. Aaron's name had better not be used again in any way. Not mine either. A full written apology is due me.''
An oral apology on Meet the Press would have gone a long way. Instead, Richardson insisted in three long, rambling answers that ``we have different recollections.''
Richardson's politics, however, might be explained best by this short news item at the Sante Fe New Mexican
N.M. food stamp rolls bursting — While the state celebrated the 30th anniversary of the modern-day food stamp program last week, it also marked the success of Gov. Bill Richardson’s administration in getting nearly 18,000 more people enrolled in this federal program for the poor. In 2003, 73,450 New Mexico families were on rolls. Today, the food stamp program helps 90,980 families buy groceries.Is that bragging or complaining? Hard to tell as the rest of the article is behind a registration wall. But when even Bill Clinton was forced by public opinion to sign welfare reform, it doesn't seem like a winning strategy.
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