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Posted: March 18, 2008 6:42 PM
Clinton's First Lady Records to be Released
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As presidential candidates Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton debate who is more qualified to become the Democratic candidate, Clinton’s records as first lady from 1993 to 2001 will be released on Wednesday by the National Archives.

On the campaign trail, Clinton has touted her foreign policy credentials as first lady - including visits to 80 countries, participating in peace negotiations in Northern Ireland and aiding refugees in Kosovo - as part of the knowledge that makes her ready to be president. Obama has challenged her involvement and depth of experience while pointing to his judgment.

“The issue is not that experience is irrelevant, the issue is whether or not experience has given you better judgment,” Obama said in an interview with NPR. “And I would argue that on critical issues like Iraq, my judgment has been superior.”

The 11,000 pages document Clinton’s activities while her husband Bill Clinton served as president, including nearly all of the meetings, trips, speaking engagements and social activities. It does not include her telephone logs, which may take one or two years to process.

Their release comes as a result of a lawsuit filed by the conservative legal watchdog group Judicial Watch.

“We are pleased we are finally getting Hillary’s daily schedules despite the Clintons’ delaying tactics,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “And it is ridiculous to expect the American people to wait ‘one to two years’ for the telephone logs of a candidate for the presidency. The Archives needs to get its act together and comply with the law, which requires the timely release of these records.”

This week, Clinton’s campaign criticized Obama for declining to meet with Northern Ireland representatives in Washington, D.C., and took the opportunity to highlight her accomplishments there.

“As First Lady and then U.S. Senator, Hillary Clinton traveled to Northern Ireland and Ireland seven times between 1995 and 2004, and gave what Northern Irish leader and Nobel Laureate John Hume recently described as ‘decisive support’ to the peace process in Northern Ireland,” a campaign statement said.

In recent months, Obama’s campaign continued to challenge Clinton to release records from her days as first lady as well as her tax returns, which her campaign said it would release on April 15.

“Clinton’s schedule as first lady were given over to the president’s representatives for review,” Clinton’s communications director Howard Wolfson said in early March. “That review has been completed. We’ve given the records back over to the archives. They are now back in the archives’ hands. Our say in the process is over, and I assume that they will be releasing them very expeditiously.”

On Monday, Clinton faced a setback when Florida announced it would not seek a redo of its January primary, a contest that Clinton won and has fought to have count in what has become a race for delegates. The Democratic National Committee stripped Florida and Michigan of their convention delegates after the two states moved their nominating contests earlier than Feb. 5 in violation of DNC rules.

Clinton spokesperson Phil Singer said on Monday that the “announcement brings us no closer to counting the votes of the nearly 1.7 million people who voted in January. We hope the Obama campaign shares our belief that Florida’s voters must be counted and cannot be disenfranchised.”