Hume: Clinton defenders rush to the rescue

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Hume: Clinton defenders rush to the rescue

Response to comments about businesses, corporations

After that remarkable assertion that corporations and businesses don't create jobs, Mrs. Clinton went on to criticize tax breaks for such enterprises, saying such policies simply don't work. Nowhere did she contradict the statement that businesses don't create jobs, and there is nothing in the full context of her remarks to indicate she did not mean to say exactly that.

Her defenders have rushed to the rescue, however, with one New York Times reporter claiming there was nothing new in her statement and that the context makes it crystal clear she was just criticizing outdated Republican tax policies.

Another defender, a poet from Vermont, said on Twitter that the assertion was correct that businesses don't create jobs. What happens, she said, is that -- quote -- "jobs open up and people rush to fill them." Well okay then.

An unnamed Clinton aide did a little better, telling the politics journal Politico that Mrs. Clinton had meant to say that tax breaks for businesses don't create jobs. Well if you believe that businesses don't create jobs in the first place, you are bound to believe that giving them tax breaks won't either.

But let's give her the benefit of the doubt, and assume she said what she didn't mean and apparently didn't realize what she'd said. It does make you wonder if the people who consider her an unbeatable candidate have overestimated her.