Clinton: 'Media literacy' needed in U.S.

GOFFSTOWN – The entertainment industry is partially, but not fully, responsible for a culture that has led to the Don Imus - and rap music-type of denigration and exploitation of women, Sen. Hillary Clinton, R-NY, said yesterday.

The Democratic Presidential front-runner refused in an interview to comment on the firing of radio talk show host Imus, saying she preferred to focus on the women's basketball team at Rutgers University, which she will visit on Monday.

She said the source of the denigration of women prevalent in the U.S. today in society today "is deeper" than the entertainment industry, "but I think the entertainment industry exemplifies the objectification and degradation that too often is occurring.

"What these young women and their coach did was to meet that degrading insult with real poise and grace, and the contrast was so dramatic," Clinton said. "I hope it gives courage to other people to stand against this, the rap music, the hip-hop music, the steady stream on TV of all kinds of things."

She said, "Media literacy is another big piece of this, to try to make sure you kids know the difference between fantasy and reality, the appropriate way to treat a woman or someone from a minority group. You have to keep reinforcing the basic civilizing lessons we try to teach our kids."

Clinton said her husband's administration promoted the "V" chip, allowing parents to block television programming they did not want their children to watch, and took a "strong stand against the violence in video games" and "against the misogynist and racist and generally inappropriate language that you see in all kinds of entertainment today."

She said that several years ago, she "took on" a large video company several years ago which had denied embedding pornographic material in a violent video game.

"We proved that they did know it and did it deliberately," she said. "I pressured them to take it off the shelves, and also have been at (the) forefront to try to get retailers to abide by the ratings provided," she said.

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"It's crude. It's not the best means of doing it," she said. But, she said, the object "is to empower parents and educate them to understand that this daily diet of violence and pornographic media de-sensitizes children.

"I've been very outspoken about this for many years, and as President, I'm going to remain outspoken about it," she said.

Clinton refused to commit to a planned early June debate being sponsored by CNN, WMUR and the New Hampshire Union Leader, but she said she and other candidates are lobbying the Democratic National Committee to sanction a New Hampshire debate.

She said she and other candidates agreed to abide by the DNC's sanctioning policy, "and what I'm doing is working very hard to persuade the DNC to sanction a New Hampshire date as early as possible."

"We're still talking to them."

She said and other candidates have asked the DNC, "What about New Hampshire? You've got to get New Hampshire in the pew at the front as soon as you can."

She said she will attend non-sanctioned debates in South Carolina and at Howard University in Washington, D.C., because she had committed to them before the DNC established the sanctioning policy.

On Iraq, Clinton said she is "not ready" to commit that she would ever vote for a bill that funds U.S. troops in Iraq but contains no timetable for withdrawal.

She said she believes Democrats "should not throw in the towel or negotiate with ourselves. We should be negotiating with the President. Our position should be that he should not veto the will of the American people by vetoing legislation that we passed.

"If he vetoes, he's vetoing the funding," she said. "We should do everything we can to keep the pressure on the President and on Republican senators, in case any names come to mind, that this is a precarious political path they are going down and not move beyond that position yet."

New Hampshire's Republican senators, Judd Gregg and John Sununu, have backed the President's opposition of a withdrawal timetable.

"I'm not ready to commit that I'm going to vote for anything other than I've already voted on," Clinton said. "I've been on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and the President is in an untenable position. One of the arguments he made was that if we continued to pass funding without time lines, he could not continue his strategy for the surge, then he turns around says he's going to extend the tours of duty."

Clinton said she was "proud of" House speaker Nancy Pelosi for visiting Syria "because there is a (diplomatic) vacuum and we can't just go for the next 20 months without trying to figure out what these countries are up to."

Clinton noted the Presidential campaign is "so fast, so intense. It feels like you're hanging onto the back of a rocket."