Posted on 07/06/2005 9:15:12 AM PDT by CHARLITE
By now, you've no doubt run into The Truth About Hillary, the gossipy bestseller by a former New York Times man who has the kind of credentials that make a fella welcome at all the finest Gotham cocktail parties.
The book paints an unflattering portrait of the former First Lady, Hillary Clinton, who author Edward Klein described to me as "the most fascinating woman in America."
As it happens, during the course of the The Truth — which is more In Touch weekly than New York Times — Klein talks a bit about sex (which, although not the whole of the book, has been the topic of most if not all of the walk-away headlines from it).
And for this, the Clintons — Bill and Hill — can be grateful.
Ironically, much ink has been used (or keys pounded) accusing conservatives of flacking for the book (who on the whole, aren't). The truth about The Truth is: It's a good thing for the Clinton Legacy Patrol. The advantage for the Clintons in the Klein job is one for the history books: It helps perpetuate the long-standing myth that the Bill Clinton impeachment trial was all about sex.
It wasn't.
Back around 1994, an independent counsel was appointed by Bill Clinton's attorney general (Janet Reno, not Ann Coulter) to investigate a land deal that went awry. That same attorney general would then ask a court to expand the investigation to encompass a sexual-harassment suit filed by one Paula Jones.
Maybe you recall, too, the stories about independent counsel Ken Starr humming hymns around the office. The "Religious Right" invaded the private life of a president. Or so was the often-repeated claim on Keith Olbermann's Endless Days and Nights of Impeachment Hell or whatever show you were watching was. They were all the same. Almost about sex.
As was common at the time, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen declared sympathetically that President Clinton "has been mortified, subjected to an Orwellian intrusion by the gumshoes of the state." Clinton defenders loved to use the phrase "sexual McCarthyism" — so much so that one of them, liberal law professor Alan Dershowitz, wrote a book on it.
The Congressional Record, however, tells a wholly different story. It wasn't all about sex. And, at bottom, the sex and the lies and the depositions were all of Bill Clinton's making.
As NR's Rich Lowry wrote in his book on the Clinton presidency, Legacy accusing Ken Starr of being obsessed with sex "was a little like attacking a bank examiner for being 'obsessed with fraud.'" He continued, "Starr couldn't help it that Clinton had happened to perjure himself over his sexual conduct during a deposition in a sexual harassment case." Clinton, as president, actually committed crimes. And, for that, the Founding Fathers stipulated punishment.
As it happened, 31 Democrats voted to go ahead with a GOP impeachment-inquiry plan in the House — the other Democrats opted for a Democratic inquiry plan. Even those Democrats who opted for a censure resolution rather than impeachment believed that he had "violated the trust of the American people" and dishonored the office which they have entrusted to him." Scores and scores of newspapers called for Clinton to resign — including USA Today and others that were most definitely not arms of what Lady Hillary called the "vast right-wing conspiracy."
What crimes did the House of Representatives find sufficient evidence for which to require Bill Clinton to stand trial before the Senate? Providing "perjurious, false and misleading testimony" to a grand jury and of obstruction of justice "in an effort to delay, impede, cover up and conceal" evidence. As it happens, the 42nd president of the United States was, as former White House aide Lanny Davis has admitted, "within inches of losing the presidency." And that was of his own doing, not Ken Starr's. It's hard to get around the "I" word, but try they will. Lowry summed up the work of the perpetual Legacy Repair Project: Impeachment is "an indelible stain on his legacy that he and his defenders will spend all time railing against and futilely attempting to erase." And here we are.
As it happens, focus on sex and the Clintons helps Bill and Hillary and associates in that legacy-face-saving endeavor. And for the woman who would be president (I can still hope not!), the discrediting of Clinton I criticism means a distraction from her most obvious female trouble: She's a self-described No-Tammy-Wynette-stand-by-my-man-cookie-baking feminist who not only stood by her man, but watched, outraged at the wrong side, as her husband inspired a mother of feminism (Gloria Steinem) to proclaim a one-free-grope rule for men.
The less fact-facing in the air, the better for the Clintons. Keeping attention off substance and in the presidential pants and senatorial skirt has got to make the Legacists smile. A conspiracy theorist would think Bill Clinton's infamous war room reunited to write those sections for Klein.
I might even call it a Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy if Matt Lauer asked me about it. It would be about as reality-based as a lot of the Clinton camp's chatter.
Char :)
What is really great to see, is the back-flips the libs are doing to cover up the "Hillary Identity". She is such a scum-bag Marxist, they are shoveling dirt over her as fast as possible. Witness too, the scare campaign that Hitlery's goon squad put on the networks to suppress the book's author from even appearing -- it will still be very revealing to hear what Hitlery actually threatened them with to make them run like scared rabbits...Arkancide??
I am going to purchase the book and read it, even though we know much of it already, just to support the author -- and the book needs all of the exposure it can get.
:-)
About what? Sex.
(book obscures truth about Clinton administration)
Question...what does Monica's head and this book have in common?
To me, the book wasn't about sex. It was about Hillary's machine and connections.
While the substance of what Clinton lied about was sex, the underlying principle was much more serious: a man who took an oath to uphold the Constitutional principles upon which the country was founded turned those principles inside out in order to avoid the full penalty of law.
Nixon tried this as well and was drumemd out of office. Clinton could get away with it because he and his minions were every bit as comfortable about lying and the exercise of raw power as Nixon was, with one notable exception: People disliked Nixon in a way they could never dislike Clinton.
Additionally, the general public of our day is less judgemental, more self-centered and measurably less intelligent and principled then those Nixon had to deal with. Most people in this country have an attention span measured in MPH, and if it doesn't explode or have breasts, we quickly lose interest. Give people a choice between thinking and reacting, and most would simply react because thinking is beyond their capacity. Add to this a friendly press (say what you will, Clinton's escapades sold papers and airtime) and media, and it's amazing that Clinton's name hasn't been sent to the Vatican for beatification.
Only hindsight and the ex-President's belated, weaselly semi-admission gave people reason to think twice. Otherwise, as long as the 401(k) was making a few bucks and no one was being blown up on American soil by hijacked airliners, no one cared who Bill was mnaking the beats with two backs with.
The real Clinton record was always much eaiser to lay out, but was obfuscated by all the salacious details and innuendo. On Clinton's watch:
1. Americans were killed in record numbers in terrorist attacks in Africa and the Middle East. The president's only response was to bomb empty buildings. When the President did use American force, it was in the interests of the "international community" (i.e the UN), as in Somalia and Bosnia. Both were dismal failures. US forces left Somalia after a shocking reversal of fortune and Bosnia is permanently guarded by US forces for the foreeable future, despite the fact that it is a European problem, with no vital US interest attached. The USS Cole was attacked in a Middle Eastern port and no action was taken wqhatsoever. Osama Bin Laden's head was offfered to President Clinton on three occasions,and he did not take the opportunity to rid the world of the Middle Eastern Doctor No. The Oklahoma City bombing trial was a farce and Tim McVeigh was executed so quickly that we may never know just what his involvement was and who else was involved with him. What MCVeigh knew and who backed him are questions left completely unanswered. We still do not know for sure what happened to TWA 800, other than a government explantion which while believable, does not address serious contradictions in eyewitness and scientific evidence.
2. Americans were subjected to two obvious and raw abuses of federal power in the seige at Waco and the forced re-patriation of Elian Gonzolez. One was presented as the government doing it's duty to protect it's citizens from a whacky religious fringe and other as a custody battle. In these contexts, Americans were more than willing to let Janet Reno run roughshod over Constitutional protections. Only after 51 days of seige at Waco did Janet Reno finally address the allegations of child abuse within the Davidian compound, and then, somehow, it was necessary to burn the children in order to save them.
3. The abuse of government departments such as the ATF, FBI,IRS, INS, Commerce and Agricultural Departments to either crush Clinton's political opposition or enrich his campaign contributors and cronies. Using the Justice Department to sue Microsoft for the benefit of Clinton contributors had a nasty effect on the US economy, which was exacerbated by 9/11, and is still being felt today.
4. The abuse of the FBI, which was used as a clearing house for dirty laundry on political opponents. Filegate had obvious political overtones and paid dividends during the Impeachment process when many opposition politicians (prime among them Bob Barr) were threatened with public exposure of their own dirty laundry. In the meantime, we still have not had any explanation as to how 900+ sensitive FBI files wound up in the White House in the hands of an ex-bar bouncer, whom no one remembers hiring.
5. Not much mention has been made of the so-called "Clinton Card" which utilized "confidential" INS files which was utilized to present non-citizens with an official-looking voter registration document which was intended to flood the polling places with illegal voters in a shallow attempt to help Al Gore in 2000. To my knowledge, Congress has not investigated this very thoroughly, if at all.
6. Democratic and especially Mrs. Clinton's ranting and raving over the Patriot Act do not assure me that she is a defender of individual rights: it al gives me the impression that demoicrats are merely telling us what THEY would do with that kind of power. The opposition to the Act is and was centered upon Bush and John Ashcroft. I'd bet my home that there is not a democrat in Washington that wouldn't love to have the Patriot Act on their side.
It is my opinion that should Mrs. Clinton run, she should be clobbered with these points on a daily basis, and forced to explain to the American public why her husband would do or sign off on these things and why she would not. Either she speaks up or her husband comes out to defend her, but either way, we get some answers to these questions.
In the meantime, as I have stressed seevral times in the last few weeks in these forums, Klien's book is not going to win a republican the White House in 2008. It willmerely be a rehashing of what we know already: Mrs. Clinton and CO are slimy. Barring some egregious criminal action or a bombshell revelation that casts Mrs. Clinton in a new light, simply recycling the same old innuendo will not work against her. She's made of teflon, thanks to her press --- she's simultaneously "the smartest woman in the world" and a "victim of her husband and a vast right-wing conspiracy".
The only way to beat Hillary Clinton is to put her on the spot every day -- ask her to explain her positions, to give details of her proposals, to make her talk constantly. The more she talks, the less attractive she becomes as a candidate and the greater chance that she'll trip herself up.
We should alls top this fantasy that some journalist is going to stop a Hillary candidacy cold.
I'm going make a point-by-point reply but please look at it as an inquiry rather than a rebuttal, a request for clarification.
1. Lying about one's sexual activities, even if it is a President doing so, is much easier to excuse than lying about misuse of public trust and power, or about public or private theft (not, of course, about sexual crimes).
2. I agree that more popularity means less accountability.
3. I agree that the general public is more a rabble than in Nixon's day...except that the Internet has created a very large minority of very interested, intelligent, aware, and activist citizens. Far more than existed in 1974. Clinton's Presidency falls in the transition.
4. In hindsight, Clinton's response to Middle-Eastern terrorism looks weak...but only in hindsight. Without 911, President Bush wouldn't have, and wouldn't have been able to have, done much better. The American public is as stolidly against "foreign adventure" as it always has been. That's why all our great war Presidents have truly had to lead and why I've been so solidly behind Bush's willingness to do whatever had to be done to respond forcefully in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. As for Waco and so on - there are always questions about such events. The truth about Sacco and Vanzetti didn't come out for a half century.
5. Don't know much about Waco and Elian but I suspect that no matter what was done a large part of the public would have been upset.
6. Don't know anything about Clinton's misuse of the FBI etc. for partisan advantage but that kind of abuse is one of the worst sins of government. Same with corrupting the voting process. It's always a problem.
7. The Left, the Democratic core, is thoroughly rotten these days - corrupted by political correctness and unexamined anti-war and anti-government ideas left over from the '60s. But Clinton cannot be blamed for that.
"Easier to excuse"? The top elected official of the United States lied under oath in federal court. In fact, the civil suit brought by Paula Jones was for a "sexual crime" -- sexual harrassment. And it was liberals like you who made it a federal case. So when Bubba gets caught dead-to-rights lying about his actions, under oath, why is that not an impeachable offense?
You said : "The top elected official of the United States lied under oath in federal court. ... So when Bubba gets caught dead-to-rights lying about his actions, under oath, why is that not an impeachable offense?"
The crime being investigate by Ken Starr was about a land deal gone bad and related issues. The crime Clinton was charged with was lying about an affair with an intern. IMHO, that is not a high crime or misdemeanor.
That's why Clinton (Bill, not the Hildebeast) was supported and liked (unlike Nixon).
Okay, let's discuss this then, point-by-point.
If you believe that lying under oath in a criminal investigation is okay, provided it's not about "a crime" but about personal proclivities, I must dissent. What Clinton lied about was his sexual harrassment of government employees (both in Arkansas and in the White House) in a nation in which such activities have been deemed illegal. If you believe "it's just about sex" or the rest of the nonsense, then walk into your office tomorrow morning and grope your secratary for the hell of it or offer a co-worker a better job if she'll sleep with you, then deny her the posting. This is, in effect, what he did. See how much leniency you get from a criminal court. If Nixon's resignation proved anything it was that the President of the United States was still subject to the rule of law. Being the president (or merely the Gov of Arkansas) is not a license to do whatever you want, when you feel like it.
Such a perversion of the legal system by it's chief enforcement officer is a danger that is obvious. In this regard, Clinton's behavior was no different that that of a prosecutor being bribed to throw a case, or a witness who gives false testimony against the innocent. The process must be beyond reproach from beginning to end, or the crimimal justice system fails to operate. It becomes merely a popularity contest, a system where justice goes to the highest bidder, or where the powerful can run roughshod over the individual, and no one has any further legal recourse.
"In hindsight" Clinton's response to terrorism was more in line with US policy since the 1970's. Carter did nothing effective when hostages were taken for 444 days in Iran. Reagan allowed 248 Marines to be killed with little response. In fact, there was just as much terrorism against Americans in Reagan's day (Achille Laurao, ROme/Vienna airport attacks, etc) as there was post-Bush I. Bush I treated Pan Am 103 as a mere law-enforcement exercise. I do not excuse their inaction, either.
However, the primary purpose of the President of the US is to defend the United States and it's citizens. Four sucessive presidents failed to act when provoked (except for picking on Libya) until the horrors of 9/11 were visted upon American soil. Even before then, the WTC was bombed in 1994, and Clinton did nothing, even when the players were all known and their countries of origin, as well. When one reads the 9/11 Commission's report, it was clear that Billy was fully informed (as best as can be) about Osama Bin Laden and fundamentalist terrorism. As if 20 years of past history were not enough. Why do you think Sandy Berger tried to steal and destroy documents scheduled to go before the Commission? Clinton was merely the last in along line to fail in that regard, but he was the one with the best chance of stopping 9/11 before it happened.
Elian and Waco were examples of the unbridled use of government power. In Waco, ATF agents stormed private property, with guns drawn and ladders pushed through windows, in an attempt to execute a warrant. A warrant whcih could have been executed on the street several days prior, when the subject was ALL BY HIMSELF. When American citizens (and I don't care what their religious beliefs were) defended themselves against an assault, the governmetn turned what should have been an easy arrest into a 51 day seige. The main complaint about David Kopresh was that he had stockpiled automatic weapons and ammunition, for purposes unknown. What is not generally known, however, is that Koresh was a federally-licensed firearms DEALER. In any other place but Clinton's America, Koresh's ARSENAL would have merely been termed INVENTORY.
The ELian Gonzolez case was about a Cuban boy who managed to make it to American shores. On any other day, a Cuban who manages to come ashore in America is immediately given the status of a political refugee, but somehow, Elian wasn't afforded that luxury. The mitigating factor was that Elian became the subject of a custody battle between his relatives in the United States and his absentee father back in Cuba. In the end, the CLinton Administration sided with the father, and used federal agents to storm the home where the boy was staying in a pre-dawn raid (despite a promise from the Justice Department not to), and forcibly repatriated a 7 year old who had become a political problem for Fidel Castro. It was this action that helped Al Gore lose Florida in 2000 -- the Cuban immigrant community in Florida is a huge voting bloc.
In Filegate, an ex-bar bouncer named Craig Livingstone was somehow entrusted with the collection and security of 900 FBI files. Allmost all of the files belonged to republicans, republican operatives, or people who could be considered "trouble" to the Clinton Administration. The FBI admitted sending the files to the White House, despite a federal law forbidding such action, and then the files subsequently disappeared. Until Mr. Livingstone emerged. When Mr. Livingstone's background became a topic of investigation, no one in the White Hosue seemed to know much about him or even who had hired him.
Not one of those files would ever have left the FBI without a Presidential Authorization in any way, shape or form.
As for the "Democratic Core", it no longer exists. If we're talking "democratic" in the sense of the Old-south sense of the word, that party died in the late 1960's when President Johnson allowed "liberals" to hijack the party. Any "democrat" worth his salt in those days, quickly changed his stripes, which expplains the continued existance of ex-Klansman Robert Byrd and sexual harrasser, and alledged woman-killer extraordinaire Ted Kennedy within the "party of civil rights".
The rest of the poparty is dominated by died-in-the-wool marxists, socialists and communists who haven't figured out that Woodstock is over. Their aim is to gain power by destroying the fundamental fabric of American society and filling the resulting vacuums with government authority. In another time and place, with a better educated populace, this would be known as Gramscian Socialism -- incremental usurpation of power by communists by infiltration of every unit of society from the home to the university to the courts.
THAT is what is left of the democratic party. And it is what Hillary, with her "it takes a village..." approach to everything represents.
The scope of Starr's investigation was continually expanded by a panel of three federal judges as White House stalling and stonewalling continued over the years. His alleged perjury in the Paula Jones case was referred to Starr's office for investigation and referral to the Congress, if evidence was found. It was.
The crime Clinton was charged with was lying about an affair with an intern. IMHO, that is not a high crime or misdemeanor.
Wrong. Clinton was charged in his Bill of Impeachment with lying under oath in federal court, a charge of which he was clearly guilty. I find such a charge entirely consistent with the description of a "high crime or misdemeanor".
Let me just clarify myself here a little: I do not intend to suggest that Clinton's predecessors were squeaky clean or not driven by personal agendas. Merely that Clinton's foibles were on display on a daily basis in a way that no preceeding President's ever were.
Bill Clinton was the creation of two separate yet inter-connected phenomenon: the consumate schnoozer meets the 24 hour media cycle. Giving the devil his due, Clinton was the consumate politician: he knew when to kiss behind, he could lie without regret, he knew how to take the public's pulse. After that, he had no core political values except that which enabled Bill to enjoy the ride. he figured out that it was enough to merely be SEEN as doing something as opposed to actually doing it. His greatest "achievements" in office, were merely policies pushed forward by Newt Gingrich and party to which he signed his name.
All other aspects of the Clinton Presidency were merely window dressing or an attempt to pass responsibility someplace else; relegate American foreign policy to the UN, blame any setback on "reactionary forces" (i.e. republicans), parse and select words as to obscure the actual thrust and meaning of your policy or positions(i.e "mend it, don't end it", "the era of big government is over", "it depends on what he meaning of is IS").
In this regard, Billy was merely a 90'sd democratic version of that which the Democrats railed against int he 80's: the self-absorbed, self-interested, greedy Wall Street wunderkind, who engaged in every excess imaginable. The difference was that he made it look glamorous.
He learned the lesson that Lenin warned his successors about: the Cult of Personality. He was, and still is, an adolescent mentality in a grown man's suit. Hillary is also cut from the same cloth, only she is infinitely more intelligent (which isn't all that hard to be in comparison), and thus, more dangerous.
As long as the Clinton media machine continues to cast them as celebrities to a dumbed-down mass of voters, they will prevail. This is why personal attacks and tell-all boooks do not work: they merely make the Clintons look like victims in the eyes of the general public.
I do not excuse their inaction, either.
It's not a question of "accusing" and it's not a partisan issue. All Presidents, Republican or Democrat, find that it's no easy thing to take America to war. Maybe, that's not a bad thing.
Why do you think Sandy Berger tried to steal and destroy documents scheduled to go before the Commission?
His usual underwear stuffing was dirty?
Filegate - if it is as you describe - is what should have led to the impeachment of Clinton. You'd do better to ask who dropped the ball among Republicans than to rail against Democratic partisans who rallied to the support of Clinton when his sexual life was exposed.
As for the "Democratic Core", it no longer exists. If we're talking "democratic" in the sense of the Old-south sense of the word
I'm talking about the party of FDR, the party of laboring men, of hard-working immigrants, of small farmers, of poorer folks and underdogs. That old world, the world of the '30s and '40s, and '50s is gone...and the Democratic party too often represents people who haven't noticed its passing and others who haven't a clue about how hard it's been to make America what it is and what's necessary to keep it from being destroyed.
FDR was a socialist in everything but his own pocketbook. In fact, FDR's New Deal is merely a Soviet-style five year plan given a populist sheen, and perpetuated.
Franklin's uncle (who, oddly enough was named Coolidge) was a member of the Fennian Society, a group of "committed socialists" who put forth the New Deal in the 1920's. FDR merely lifted it page for page in the 30's, thus all the rhetoric about "the working man" and the romantic rubbish of the "yeoman farmer". That's all straight out of the Communist playbook. FDR did not make us a socialist country, but he gave us as much socialism as we could stand. In that regard, I consider FDR no "democrat".
But, if you wish to learn about true democrats, I suggest you find everything you can about Daniel Patrick Moynahan, Scoop Jackson and Harry Truman. They were the last breed of true democrat -- i.e. citizens committed to serving their fellow citizens, doing so with a high regard for morals, principles and logic, as befits the party of Jefferson.
Truman was a great guy who had the misfortune to succeed FDR under the worst possible circumstances. He knew it too.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan is one of my heroes, personally and politically. A true gentleman who, simply by his presence, forced others to behave similarly. God makes very few like him.
I know a great deal more "about them and the world that spawned them" because I hold a MA in Western Civ. Don't fool yourself: Roosevelt was no great humanitarian -- he merely had an idea that hadn't been tried yet and got lucky with it. P.S. Roosevelt was also a master of the media of his day -- he couldn't get away with half the crap he tried in this day and age.
I know a great deal more "about them and the world that spawned them" because I hold a MA in Western Civ. Don't fool yourself: Roosevelt was no great humanitarian -- he merely had an idea that hadn't been tried yet and got lucky with it. P.S. Roosevelt was also a master of the media of his day -- he couldn't get away with half the crap he tried in this day and age.
But you have it backwards - Roosevelt gave us the least socialistic government he thought would function and survive (Hoover having failed at giving us none at all). He succeeded in giving millions work and hope during very dark times...and led us to complete and total triumph over the greatest enemy Western Civilization had faced in centuries. Everything else is of no importance.
And there's something else that can't be learned but must be lived. I know Roosevelt's world. I remember his death.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.